4 years in the past, Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Monica Rodriguez stood on the steps of Metropolis Corridor and celebrated the creation of the Youth Improvement Division.
She had pushed since 2018 for the division, which oversees packages for younger individuals, together with a Youth Council to teach them about metropolis authorities.
On Tuesday, with town deep in a funds disaster, Rodriguez pleaded for Mayor Karen Bass to not do away with the division.
In her proposed funds for the upcoming fiscal 12 months, Bass urged that town fold the Youth Improvement Division — together with the Division of Getting old and the Financial and Workforce Improvement Division — into the bigger Neighborhood Funding for Households Division.
The Youth Improvement Division would now not exist, although a few of its capabilities could be preserved. Beneath Bass’ proposal, the funds devoted to these capabilities would lower from $2.3 million to lower than $1.6 million. Eight workers could be laid off, with 10 remaining.
“Don’t undermine and wipe away all these years of labor,” Rodriguez stated at a information convention at Metropolis Corridor on Wednesday.
She known as the mayor’s proposed funds “a hatchet to so many packages that Angelenos depend on” and stated there was no “rhyme or purpose” to a few of the urged cuts.
Matt Hale, town’s deputy mayor of finance, innovation and operations, stated the three departments being absorbed by the Neighborhood Funding for Households Division have tasks that generally overlap.
“Like most issues within the metropolis, now we have divided them into silos, and individuals who come by our doorways saying ‘I need assistance’ are then given a scavenger hunt to carry out,” Hale stated.
At a Metropolis Council funds committee assembly Tuesday, Hale stated the consolidation would save $5 million and “lead to higher outcomes and more practical companies.”
Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl stated the mayor’s workplace is just not contemplating reversing course on the consolidation.
Bass’ proposed funds, which is being thought-about by the funds committee in a number of weeks of hearings, makes an attempt to shut a $1-billion shortfall induced largely by rising personnel prices, hovering authorized payouts and a slowdown within the native economic system. The mayor’s funds eliminates greater than 2,700 metropolis positions — about 1,650 of them by layoffs.
Along with working the 30-member Youth Council, the Youth Improvement Division organizes the Youth Summit and the Youth Expo, annual occasions that assist younger individuals get jobs and internships. The division is also reviewing metropolis packages to find out whether or not they’re reaching youths and assembly youths’ wants.
If the cuts urged by the mayor are made, the Youth Improvement Division would attain about 6,900 constituents, down from about 10,000 final 12 months.
“To take [the department] away now wouldn’t simply be a step backwards, it will be a betrayal of the youth … who need to be invested in, not ignored,” stated Monica Rodriguez — no relation to the councilmember — who was a member of the inaugural Youth Council.
Councilmember Rodriguez stated that as an alternative of being consolidated, the division ought to develop, suggesting that the Gang Discount and Youth Improvement program ought to come below its purview. This system, which gives gang intervention and prevention companies and neighborhood engagement packages, is below the mayor’s workplace and has a proposed funds of practically $40 million.
“The division doesn’t must go away. The division can maintain itself,” the council member stated. “This funds doc must be a mirrored image of the values of this metropolis and what’s being communicated at the moment is younger individuals’s voices are subordinate to different priorities — and that’s not OK.”
