L.A. mayor urges new round of city job cuts Villaraigosa wants to eliminate between 1,200 and 2,000 more positions. His stance signals a more aggressive approach to the city's budget crisis. By Phil Willon, David Zahniser and Maeve Reston
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a second round of city job cuts Thursday -- between 1,200 and 2,000 positions -- and warned that much deeper layoffs would be needed if the City Council and employee unions failed to act quickly on proposals to cut payroll costs, trim services and auction city assets.
With the current $212-million budget shortfall expected to double next year, Villaraigosa said the threat of layoffs was his only leverage to force the city's powerful unions to accept lower wages and help rescue the city from insolvency.
If the council hesitates to act or the unions resist, Villaraigosa vowed to order agency heads to send additional pink slips to more of the city's roughly 37,000 workers.
"Layoffs are the only . . . tool I have to be relevant here. Otherwise, I am at the mercy of forces beyond my control," Villaraigosa said at a meeting with The Times' editorial board. "I can control layoffs. I can't control that the council will pass anything. I don't have a vote on the council."
Villaraigosa's threats provided the clearest sign yet that he has decided to take a more aggressive approach to the worsening financial crisis, which threatens the city's credit rating and ability to borrow.
For the last two months, he had worked mostly behind the scenes. But that changed last week after the council voted to postpone any layoffs for 30 days. The next day, the mayor ordered agency heads to eliminate 1,000 positions paid from the city's general fund budget, a move that he expects will lead to hundreds of transfers and at least 250 layoffs.
Since Tuesday, Villaraigosa has gone to the council, the news media and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to publicly campaign for quick action. The second wave of job cuts -- which would bring the total to as many as 3,000 -- would be part of his proposed 2010-11 budget, he said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, a political veteran who backed Villaraigosa as a candidate for mayor, said she was alarmed at the start of the week to see him appearing with former Beatle Ringo Starr on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the middle of a fiscal crisis. That dismay turned to relief, Molina said, when Villaraigosa appeared before the council Tuesday.
