Los Angeles Budgets: The Bias of the L.A. Times

The L.A. Times has this headline on a budget story "L.A. county, city budgets call for austerity".Here's a quote:

The mayor's $7-billion budget proposal offered few surprises, because he has already announced plans to continue hiring 1,000 new police officers and raise the city's monthly trash fees from $26 to $36 for homeowners. The plan calls for $90 million in increases to trash, golf, parking, recreation, development and animal adoption fees.

One union leader said the city's residents shouldn't have to cope with both higher fees and the reductions in services that will come with mandatory furloughs.

"If we're going to impose these fees on the residents, and then we're going to ask them to take a furlough cut, we're going to want to exhaust every other avenue, looking under every rock," said Bob Schoonover, vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents 11,000 municipal workers.

Still, Villaraigosa disavowed one fee hike that has had library lovers up in arms in recent weeks: a $1 charge on transfers and book reservations devised by the mayor's five appointees on the library commission.

"I didn't make that proposal. The library commission did," the mayor said. "They didn't confer with my office when they did that. It may be that now that they see the proposals I have made, they may reconsider that."

Despite the increased fees, some city departments would get more money in Villaraigosa's budget. The planning department would see its budget go up 7.7% compared with the previous year, giving it the money needed to complete a series of neighborhood plans.

The transportation budget would receive 7% more money, some of which would be used to install new left-turn signals. And the Bureau of Street Services would see its budget go up 3%, allowing it to repair 60 additional miles of streets. The financial boost would allow the city to reduce its street repair backlog from 63 years to roughly 40 years, said Bill Robertson, general manager of the Bureau of Street Services.

Does hiring a 1000 new police officers sound like "austerity"?