Los Angeles City Council resurrects neighborhood councils agency

June 15, 2010 | By KPCC Wire Services | KPCC

The agency that oversees the city's 90 neighborhood councils was slated for elimination July 1 until being resurrected today by the Los Angeles City Council.

Councilman Paul Krekorian spearheaded the move to restore the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, saying: "A time of budget crisis like this is exactly the time when we need to be encouraging and taking best advantage of the vast army of volunteer activists throughout our city who want to build a better future for their community."

"At a time when we're cutting back on so many services, the neighborhood council movement is especially important," Krekorian added. "It needs to be especially vibrant."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in February recommended consolidating DONE with the Community Development Department to cut $1.5 million a year in costs by eliminating 20 positions.

Krekorian, who chairs the council's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, vowed to work with the mayor's office to achieve the same amount of savings. He conceded, however, that it would be "challenging, to be sure."

They must develop a plan for running DONE with reduced funding and staff within two weeks, or before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.

DONE has been plagued with problems. In January, the City Controller's Office released an audit criticizing the department for "a systematic failure of accounting and fiscal oversight" of neighborhood councils, each of which received $50,000 in the previous fiscal year.

The city controller noted six neighborhood councils have been or are under police investigation for about $276,000 in questionable credit card purchases.

The audit also found the department has:

– failed to enforce a requirement that neighborhood councils submit financial reports;

– failed to review neighborhood councils' budgets;

– failed to make sure that neighborhood councils stay within their credit card limits; and

– failed to provide oversight of neighborhood councils' cash advances.

"Several neighborhood councils that we visited could not properly account for their cash," the audit states. "One neighborhood council could not account for up to $6,000 in cash withdrawals, nor did it have expenditure receipts. An additional neighborhood council made regular cash withdrawals, even though the funds were not needed."

The audit also uncovered discrepancies in neighborhood councils' equipment purchases. It found that a number of computers, cameras, radios and other equipment were in the possession of former board members who no longer participated in neighborhood council activities.

Auditors also learned that some equipment had been "donated to other parties," including a four-wheel drive vehicle, a surveillance van, flat panel televisions, memory mattress pads, and even Sony Playstation systems and video games.

DONE General Manager BongHwan Kim, who had requested the audit, said his department is short-staffed because of the city's budget problems. He used to have seven people providing oversight of neighborhood councils, but that number was eventually reduced to four.

It is not clear how many people will be left to do the work under the new framework being designed by Krekorian's committee and the mayor's office.

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