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Payroll outrage

TWO points are made starkly clear by the information in today's Daily News stories about Los Angeles city salaries. The first is that much of the city's budget deficit can be directly attributed to soaring public-employee wages. The second is that city leaders knew they were putting L.A. into future financial jeopardy by agreeing to payroll raises last year - but did so anyhow.

Now that the city is facing a $406 million deficit for the fiscal year beginning in July, officials are suddenly feigning shock, as if the economic slowdown came as a total surprise. But the evidence shows quite clearly that economists and budget experts warned Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council about the looming economic slowdown more than a year ago.

Nonetheless, city leaders pushed up payroll costs - through an overly generous new contract and through programmatic salary "step" increases - by about $120 million last year. This, even though L.A   Read Full Article...