Countless disasters could smash the city of Los Angeles in the coming years: wildfires. flood. Landslides. Drought. And of course, big ones.
However, this month, LA leaders are tasked with helping the office coordinate recovery from the Palisade fire and prepare for a variety of disasters and prominent events, including the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Last week, the LA City Council voted between 12 and 3 to pass a budget denying EMD leaders hire more staff and refusing to revise the funds they requested to fix broken security equipment around the facility, facing a budget denying an increase in funds requested to fix broken security equipment.
EMD’s only budget increase comes through bureaucratic restructuring. The department will absorb five-person climate emergency mobilization offices. Mayor Karen Bass had planned to eliminate it in his initial proposal to reduce the fiscal deficit.
Funding allocations to EMD, which has an operating budget of around $4.5 million, are lacking in similar metropolitan cities since California.
In a 2022 audit by the then-city controller, Ron Galperin was noted by San Diego ($2.46), Long Beach ($2.26) and San Francisco ($7.59). While LA has around 30 staff, New York is more than twice the population of LA, with 200 people on the emergency management team, and Philadelphia’s population is less than half of LA, with 53 people.
EMD’s current leader, general manager Carol Parks, and assistant general manager Jim Featherstone requested special funds this spring to build an in-house recovery team to better equip the city for Palisades recovery and future disasters.
“We are one of the most populous, if not the world, of the country’s most at-risk jurisdictions,” Featherstone told LA City Council’s Budget Committee on April 30. [not] We have the same disaster recovery ability as the disaster we just experienced. ”
Bass spokesman Zach Seidl opposed the idea that EMD funding levels would hinder Palisades’ fire recovery or preparations for the Olympic Games and the 2026 World Cup.
“In a difficult budget year, Mayor Bass focused on emergency management to keep Angelenos safe, including EMD ensuring continuous staffing and resources,” Seidl said in a statement. “We will continue to move forward with one of the fastest recovery efforts in state history.”
Councillor Traci Park, representing Pallisard, is one of the city council trioes that opposed the budget passed last week, citing inadequate funds for public safety as one of her main objections.
“We’re inevitable that we’ll have another disaster, but we’re not ready yet. We’re in the same position as before,” said Pete Brown, a park spokesman who denounced EMD cuts and lack of resources for police and fire departments.
“We got a terrifying taste about what it was like when we weren’t ready,” Brown said.
Rick Caruso, the developer who lost the Bus in the 2022 mayoral race, has called both the budget proposal proposed by Bass and the spending plan approved by the City Council “blatant display and bad judgment of mismanagement and bad judgments,” expressing the rationale for EMD’s funding level.
“We’re in the earthquake zone. We’re in the fire zone. Please come,” Caruso said in an interview.
Bass spokesman Seidl disputed that LA had not learned from the Palisades fires, highlighting that emergency management spending includes “continuous and new investments” in EMD and city police and fire agencies.
Emergency management experts, city-commissioned audits, and EMD’s current leadership warn that there is a lack of staff and funds to accomplish its mission in one of the nation’s most disaster-prone regions.
“That sector could become a global leader in emergency management, and it could be the standard for other parts of the country, but with a third of staff and a tenth of the budget required, that’s not possible.”
EMD’s general manager and agency spokesman did not respond to questions written about approved budgets last week.
In a recent official statement, Parks revealed that her budget request appears to be awkward after being opposed this year.
She told LA Recovery’s ad hoc committee in March that she had been looking for 24 more staff at EMD, but officials under the city administrator balked at her request.
Featherstone, which is now coordinating Pallisard’s fire recovery, said Parks’ demands received “qualitative negative reactions,” suggesting there is a lack of understanding or evaluation of the import of the EMD role.
“There were qualitative opinions that were disagreed with Park, who had these positions and those who were not emergency managers, who expressed their opinions on the value and value of these positions,” Featherstone said.
Parks said she reduced her demands “in light of the city’s current financial situation,” adding that she “needs a minimum of 10 people.” In a memo, Parks said those 10 positions cost around $1.1 million a year.
These 10 additional positions were not included when Bass announced the budget proposal. EMD has maintained approximately 30 positions, similar to the previous year. This would cost around $7.5 million if it includes pensions, healthcare and other expenses. Bass’ budget proposal touted that she was able to maintain all EMD positions while other departments faced sudden staffing and funding cuts.
Both Parks and Featherstone had argued about creating designated in-house recovery teams that are lacking in EMD. When the Palisades fire broke out in January, EMD had no one assigned full-time for recovery. Bass also held the private company Hagerty Consulting, which boosted EMD and provided immediate expertise on one-year contracts for up to $10 million.
Still, Featherstone told City Council that the need to train and create internal teams accounts for much of the first Palisades’ fire recovery efforts, as LA lacked expertise in internal recovery.
A memo prepared by city administrators says that in stages in the internal recovery and reconstruction department with 10 staff, the company will cost another $1.5 million next year. Hiring another 21 staff to prepare for the Olympics and other major events would cost around $3 million.
Parks also requested $209,000 to repair the emergency operations center’s video system, saying the lack of surveillance cameras poses a threat to city employees.
“Several incidents have occurred when the safety and security of the facility was compromised due to the camera system without resolution,” Parks wrote in a budget memo submitted this spring.
Requests for funding for replacement cameras were also denied.
LA officials have long been warned that EMD lacks resources. A 2022 audit by former city manager Galperin found that LA has fewer emergency management funds than Peer City, and that the Covid-19 pandemic “has likely to be delayed in tension EMD resources and staffing, and that the city is ready for future emergencies.”
An EMD post-action report on EMD’s Covid-19 handling, written by Emergency Management Consultant Lowe, found that the agency was “undervalued, misunderstood, underfunded and disrupted.” Parks took over as general manager after a period covered in Lowe’s report.
The lack of training and funding was revealed at the April 2024 budget hearing. Councillor Katy Yaroslavsky asked the park in person at the meeting. [emergency] Open 24/7 in an emergency? ”
“The answer is no,” Parks said. “If there are multiple days when an emergency operations center needs to be activated, there are not enough staff.”
In the event of the Palisades fire, EMD said additional emergency management personnel must be taken from other cities to maintain the 24-hour emergency business centre.
Lowe said LA leaders were unable to recognize the role of EMD in the city’s wider public safety infrastructure.
“We don’t know at a political level that the city understands and appreciates the purpose of the emergency management and the department, and that it goes down to budget and size of the department,” Lowe said.
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