Beyond Staying the Course
March 18, 2014
by Gary Toebben
Yesterday, Miguel Santana, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the City of Los Angeles released his annual report on the financial health of the City. He also included recommendations to the mayor and City Council on the budget deliberations for the 2014-15 year, which must be concluded by mid-June. Santana titled the report “Staying the Course” because he built on recommendations from his past reports and actions that the mayor and City Council have taken the last five years to address the City's structural budget deficit.
The business community will be in agreement with Santana's report because he recommends the same type of financial decisions that business people make every day. Business owners know that managing expenses and growing their customer base are the two key ingredients for a prosperous business. The second part of this business model, growing the customer base, is where the City of Los Angeles is falling short.
For a city, growing the customer base means adding new businesses and helping existing businesses to expand. While other cities and counties across the nation have largely recovered from the Great Recession, L.A. County still has nearly 70,000 fewer jobs than we had at the start of the recession. Until the City and County of Los Angeles recover these jobs and start adding more, the annual financial report from the CAO's office will be the same as the report released yesterday, which said we are making progress but still have a long way to go.
All elected officials, business people, labor leaders and residents who care about public services should read “Staying the Course.” It is a good report with good recommendations. Once you finish that report, let’s start talking about how we collectively grow the economies of the City and County of Los Angeles so that next year's report from the CAO shows a growth in tax revenue from new businesses and growing businesses who are investing in Los Angeles and creating new jobs.
And that's The Business Perspective.
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Terry Gubatan
Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corp
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