Courtesy photo
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contributing Columnist
Mayor Karen Bass did the right thing. She did something that elected officials almost universally are loath to do and when called upon to do it usually refuse. That is cutting their own pay.
Now the Los Angeles City Council should do the same. Cut its pay.
Bass volunteered to cut her pay for a compelling reason, actually two very compelling reasons.
One is the crushing Los Angeles city budget crisis which inches close to $1 billion. To close it, upwards of 1,600 city employees could be laid off. It’s not just the numbers, it’s where those numbers would occur.
They are in several vital city agencies — from city planning to police services. The budget crunch also might entail department shutdowns and an indeterminate time freeze on any new city hires.
The draconian cuts are unprecedented and damaging. Bass recognized that and took the pay cut. The L.A. City Council should do the same.
The second reason she took the cut was to send a loud, clear message. That is if city officials can demand that rank-and-file city employees pay the steep price and lose their jobs because of a drastic funding short fall then the top brass can at least share some of the financial pain. It’s more than just photo op symbolism.
It conveys a brutal reality that economic hard times impacts all, no matter the position they hold. Bass understood that in taking the pay cut. The L.A. City Council should understand it too.
There’s an added reason. It is by far the top salaried city council in the nation. It’s not just the outsized pay checks the members give themselves. They also have mandated expense accounts, discretionary funds, cars paid for by the city, and a fully paid staff. There isn’t a lot of cash coming out of their personal pockets for expenses.
The council has in recent weeks issued reams of fact sheets, charts and papers detailing the grim financial picture, what agencies and employees will have to go, and why the shortfall occurred in the first place. But nowhere in any of the reams of materials or statements on the crisis is there any mention of it including itself in the mix of those who are being asked to sacrifice. No surprise here.
Public officials go absolutely apoplectic when unions, labor watchers, analysts and budget experts question the routine and relentless pay raises that elected officials have an insatiable propensity to award themselves. This almost never changes even when there is the real or potential threat of county or municipal revenue fall offs.
The officeholders still manage to get theirs. In the rare case that an elected official has an epiphany about their often times inflated pay they bring down the wrath of their fellow elected officials.
A San Francisco county supervisor in 2024 found that out. The county, like L.A., faced a big budget shortfall. The supervisor proposed the mayor, and her fellow supervisors take a slightly above 10% pay cut. That was roughly the same percentage that the supervisors were demanding that the various county departments slash their budgets by.
The savings from the supervisors’ pay cut would be placed in a special fund to offset the proposed cuts in essential county services. Nice try, and an even nice idea. But no takers.
The dig-in-their-heels reluctance, no rejection, of lawmakers to cut a nickel from their pay despite the dire fiscal picture prompted a top lawmaker in New Zealand to try to ram legislation through requiring a temporary pay reduction for public officials.
In 2020, New Zealand faced a severe budget drop-off and government employees were faced with job losses and layoffs. The country’s prime minister introduced a bill requiring a 20% pay cut for all ministers, mayors and local city council members.
The prime minister got it right in his statement why he took the action.
“This isn’t about pay cuts at the front line, as we start to get our country moving again, we don’t want people on low and middle incomes to bear the brunt,” he said. “We will continue to work towards fair pay for lower-paid workers, especially the people we have been relying on as essential workers.”
The bill passed. Needless to say, that was the rare exception.
The call for the L.A. City Council to slash its pay is not novel. There have been calls and even a past proposal floated for the council to take a pay cut. One of the proposals was a ballot initiative to peg the council pay at “one half” of a municipal judge’s salary.
The proponents in floating the idea blasted the council as ineffectual and claimed that council members were more interested in making money and furthering their careers than serving their constituents. That was a contentious, highly debatable, and probably unfair, knock against many of the council members. But it made the fair point that the council at least in times of dire financial crisis can take a pay hit too.
Bass made clear with her voluntary pay slash that city employees must not suffer financial pain alone. Again, the question is will the city council make that clear too and follow her example?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He also is the host of the weekly The Hutchinson Report Facebook Livesteam.
