Nearly 200 city workers and members of community organizations gathered for better government at the first SEIU Efficiency Summit on Saturday, April 11. They promoted ideas to save money, eliminate waste, and promote services during this budget crisis. City Council members signed a pledge to fully consider workers' ideas before going forward with service cuts and layoffs. Participants developed ideas together to help carry LA strong and healthy through this budget crisis, looking always to the future.
Tom LaBonge, one of five City Council members who attended the summit, said, "The best ideas come from the field. The best workers are city workers."
Members generated hundreds of ideas which will be compiled and presented to the City Council, the City Administrative Officer and other city officials for consideration during the budget hearings.
Bernard Parks, Budget & Finance Committee Chair, told the gathered workers and community leaders at the summit, "Budget hearings start on April 27th and we certainly want to have your voices there. We're going to need everybody's help."
James Peoples, who works in Street Services, had this idea: "alternative work schedules can save city gas and resources."
The LAPD estimates that a 3/12 alternative work schedule-a work week of three twelve-hour days-recently implemented for Detention Officers will save $2.5 million per year. It will also keep these workers off the freeways two days a week, cutting their contribution to traffic and pollution. And the workers get more time to spend with their families. So it's good for everybody-management, workers and residents.
Imagine the savings and benefits to the city of extending this program to other workers, wherever it makes sense.
On April 1st the LA Times reported that the LAPD's hiring freeze has led to cops manning desks. Real civilianization of the LAPD can free up cops to patrol neighborhoods while civilians handle support functions at around half the salary costs. Detention Officer Brian Hollenbaugh said the City and the LAPD could save an additional $4 to $5 million if they utilized Detention Officers to perform all of the transportation of arrestees. "This would free up patrol officers. That's efficiency," he said.
City workers have been thinking like this for decades, saving the city money and improving services to residents. Years ago Traffic Officers pushed for a pilot project to take over responsibility for finding stolen vehicles from the police. It worked so well it's now policy. Traffic Officers drive around all day looking at parked cars; they're now able to find stolen vehicles often before they've been stripped and return them intact to their owners. And LAPD estimates this frees up 2 cops per day for patrols.
The Mayor in his State of the City address forecast a future with LA as a leader in the green revolution. Just last week City Council passed the green retrofit ordinance to train workers from underserved communities to upgrade city facilities. It's the culmination of three years work where SEIU partnered in the LA Apollo Alliance with 25 environmental, community and labor organizations and worked with city officials including the Mayor that moves us toward the green future called for by President Obama and Mayor Villaraigosa.
Personnel Committee Chair Dennis Zine also attended SEIU's Efficiency Summit and signed the pledge, as did Councilmembers Herb Wesson and Jose Huizar.
Apollo Alliance and other community organizations like SCOPE, ACORN, People for Parks, and SCANPH (Southern California Alliance for Non-Profit Housing) attended because workers have to partner with residents to find the best solutions. Elected officials have term limits. Residents don't. Neither do city workers. Most of them make city work their career. City workers and city residents are the continuity of the city.
The Mayor has said that his April 20th budget will include layoffs "unless other action is taken." The Mayor has called on city workers to "share the pain" through wage and benefit concessions.
Bob Schoonover, Heavy Duty Equipment Mechanic for the City for over 30 years, and President of SEIU Local 721 said, "Here's what SEIU and the Coalition of LA City Unions stands for in this budget debate: early retirements not layoffs, quality public services not privatization, promoting efficiency and cost-savings, and no steps backward on our contracts. The Mayor's proposals are off-base. City workers have much more to share in solving this crisis than suffering cuts that will hurt their families in this tough economy."
City workers always shared the pain when the city suffers budget problems. They're the ones on the frontlines day after day, figuring out the best ways to do more with less. And they've taken action time and time again over decades to see their city through rough times.
"We'll work with the city as we always have before to find a solution that fits the problem," said Schoonover, a Heavy Duty Equipment Mechanic for the City for over 30 years.
Government might have to get leaner to make it through this crisis. If that has to happen, city workers believe that early retirements are better for the city as a whole than layoffs. Early retirements allow the city to trim its workforce and rethink the way it does business to increase efficiency, without laying off young workers with families who might then lose their houses and cars as well as their jobs.
The full pledge that City Council members attending the summit signed:
1. COMMIT TO EARLY RETIREMENTS as a sensible and effective alternative to service cuts and layoffs.
2. WORK WITH CITY WORKERS and fully consider their ideas for savings, increased revenue and efficiencies before going forward with service cuts and layoffs.
3. QUICKLY IMPLEMENT NEW, MONEY-SAVING IDEAS and previous recommendations that are stuck in the pipeline.
4. OPPOSE PRIVATIZATION unless tough standards of accountability, wage and benefits, and savings are maintained.
"This is a crisis," said Bob Schoonover, "but it's also an opportunity to implement changes and innovative ideas that will make government work better for city residents now and into the future.
Read more about the Efficiency Summit and see photos at SEIU721.org (Julie Butcher is the Regional Director, LA/OC Cities, at SEIU Local 721.)
