LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia

UPDATE 📣

- City of LA employee layoffs and

- the City paying ANOTHER $40 million more than they needed to for the police pension contribution (watch our May 20th video for details)

Keep sharing and following along to know what your City is doing 💰

Despite having only 5 Fraud, Waste, and Abuse investigators for the entire city (40,000+ employees and 40+ departments), our FWA Unit thoroughly evaluates all cases.

New report: bit.ly/fwa-2024

What's the Controller's Office up to? 🤔

📚 Closing the books since the fiscal year just ended

📝 Working on two audits (Animal Services & Sanitation) & about to launch a new one 👀

🔎 Fraud, waste, & abuse investigations

💪🏼 Constant financial transparency & handling payments

Poster REPORT: Waste Theft Fraud LACity Controller's Fraud Hotline -866-428-1514 bit.ly/controllerfwa Killa thecorgi is wearing a sherlock holmes hat and has a pipe in his mouth and he is holding a magnifying glass

If YOU see fraud, waste or abuse in City government, report it to our FWA unit here:
bit.ly/controllerfwa

Read our new annual Fraud, Waste & Abuse report (NEW): bit.ly/fwa-2024

Because we only have FIVE FWA investigators, we had to refer 56% of cases to the related City department to investigate‼️

(In many cases, it is not appropriate for a department to investigate a complaint because of a lack of independence and objectivity relative to complaints)

For the entire City of LA, we only have FIVE FWA investigators. We also got our FWA budget cut last fiscal year. ✂️

LA City has 40+ departments & 40,000+ employees.

Our FWA work is especially important given the City's budget crisis, we must protect the City's scarce resources.

The 61% spike in cases mainly related to matters outside FWA's jurisdiction, e.g., personal financial fraud.

Regardless, our FWA Unit still thoroughly evaluates ALL CASES to determine the appropriate course of action. 🔎

This has posed SIGNIFICANT INCREASES in our workload. 📈

Bar Chart of Fraud Waste and Abuse cases received from our Office from 2014 to 2024 2014 253 2015 337 2016 173 2017 223 2018 343 2019 543 2020 460 2021 523 2022 464 2023 441 2024 708

NEW🚨

In 2024, our FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE (FWA) Unit received 708 cases (up 61%)‼️

EXAMPLES🔎
- City employee saved pornographic material on city phone & used position for personal gain on a building project
- Officer issued unenforceable parking tickets

bit.ly/fwa-2024

Here are some of the reforms that have come up at public comment. Which one are you excited about? 🤔
bsky.app/profile/cont...

Are you tired of the City going broke?
Another corruption scandal at City Hall?

That can all change with ✨️Charter Reform!✨️

This is your chance to help shape LA and turn it into a fairer, more transparent, accountable, and responsive city! Visit reformlacharter.lacity.gov and give public comment!

Yes, it is open to the public! See the agenda here: reformlacharter.lacity.gov/public-events

To see when the Charter Reform Commission is meeting, go to reformlacharter.lacity.gov

The next meeting is TOMORROW (Sat 7/19 at 11AM) at CSUN.

✨Ranked Choice Voting✨

✨Smaller City Council Districts✨

✨Independent Budgeting for the Controller ✨

These are some reforms to the City that YOU could vote for in 2026! Changes like these are discussed in Charter Reform Commission meetings. Get involved!

Affordable housing is meant to make housing accessible to everyone who can't afford housing. It's important that the City watch over it effectively.

Check out our audit at bit.ly/ah-audit

🔎 Talking about our latest Performance Audit on the City's oversight and monitoring of our Affordable Housing stock.

The City oversees about 47,000 affordable housing units but still needs over 400,000 affordable housing units to meet the needs of low-income households.

City of LA Liability Claims Dashboard Interactive dashboard analyzing City of Los Angeles liability claims and payouts from FY2020 to FY2025

Check out liabilityclaims.lacontroller.app to learn more about liability payouts.

Liability costs have always been a top concern for our office
👏They’re in a large part preventable
👏They shouldn’t be a substitute for harm prevention or other alternatives for public safety
👏They’ve been a major reason that the City is in a financial crisis.

FY25’s amount budgeted for liability payouts was $87M.

So the City paid out more than 3x what was budgeted.

The liability payout total for Fiscal Year 2025 is a City of LA record high: $286M.

Liability payout totals year over year –
FY21: $87M
FY22: $91M
FY23: $167M
FY24: $247M
FY25: $286M

City of LA Liability Claims Dashboard Interactive dashboard analyzing City of Los Angeles liability claims and payouts from FY2020 to FY2025

The Misc. category makes up the rest of the departments:

• The highest payout relates to a $10.5M payout for a light falling on someone's head

• The second relates to a $7.5M payout from a shelter dog attack

CHECK OUT our liability claims dashboard: liabilityclaims.lacontroller.app

FY2025 City of LA liability payouts $286,345,711 new city record liability payout bar chart for the City of c LA for FY2025 Police $151,522,468 Miscellaneous $49,702,538 Street Services $43,738,459 Transportation $19,818,000 Fire $10,295,066 Sanitation $6,407,547 Rec & Parks $2,525,000 Engineering $2,336,633

🥳 CONGRATULATIONS to the City of LA on setting a NEW RECORD for LIABILITY PAYOUTS! 🥳

Liability payouts get taken out of the General Fund, not from the responsible department's budget.

This leads to the defunding of other City departments and is contributing to city layoffs.

Other Notes 📝

• Work up to 20 hours per week (including at City Hall two-days a week)

• Up to $27.81 per hour depending on qualifications / experience

• This is a temporary gig / as-needed position

Picture of killa the corgi miling.text ofgraphicsays We're hiring two as-needed interns accounting (ap) intern technology (full-stack intern) see post caption for more details and requirements Send resume to controller.mejia@lacity.org

WE'RE HIRING TWO TEMPS/INTERNS! 📢

REQUIREMENTS:
🧑‍💼 Accounting/AP: Accounting major or 2-years experience in Accounting/AP

💻 Technology (Full-Stack): Experience in, or willingness to learn, Mapbox, NextJS, Python, full stack web dev

Send resume to controller.mejia@lacity.org

Bar chart that says: City of Los Angeles Department Operational FY2026 Budget The police have the longest bar chart that goes left to right because they have the highest operating budget at $1.97 billion. Police $1.97B $1,986,961,261 Fire $898M $897,786,218 Sanitation $422M $421,639,022 Recreation & Parks $359M $359,274,923 Library $270M $269,765,136 General Services $220M $220,043,173 Transportation $216M $215,546,917 Liability Claims $187M $187,370,072 City Attorney $186M $186,019,985 Street Services $169M 168,811,761 Building & Safety $149M $149,306,933 Engineering $119M $119,241,718 Housing $107M $106,767,925 Info Tech Agency $93.3M $93,348,341 Personnel $76.3M $76,373,370 City Planning $69.8M $69,853,133 Finance $50.3M $50,312,377 Street Lighting $49.2M $49,247,801 Contract Administration $47.2M $47,201,870 Community Invest. Families $44.9M $44,860,028 City Administrative Officer $43.4M $43,368,147 Council $39.3M $39,287,807 Zoo $31.

🎇 HAPPY FISCAL NEW YEAR!

✅ The FY2026 budget is NOW in effect!

💰 Here is the Operating Budget for each City Department (mainly payroll costs + expenses, not pensions/benefits).

😱 PS. The $187M budget for Liability Claims is more than the Operating Budget of 34 departments!

📊 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT 📊

We're proud to release our LIABILITY CLAIMS DASHBOARD, where you can explore comprehensive liability claims data for the City of Los Angeles from FY2020 to FY2025 (March).

VISIT liabilityclaims.lacontroller.app to explore 🔎

Over 50% of Angelenos are renters.

50% of LA City renters spend over 30% of income on rent.

To keep people housed, it's crucial we keep housing affordable. Check out our recent Affordable Housing Oversight audit: bsky.app/profile/cont...

Rent-stabilized unit rent increases in LA City are capped at 10% a year. (The increase is calculated based on inflation.)

The LA Housing Dept has recommended the rent increase maximum be lowered to 5%, closer to other cities’ maximums.

🚨TODAY, July 1, the yearly allowed rent increase (up to 5%* this year) for rent-stabilized units takes effect.

*For MOST rent-stabilized units, the max increase is 3%. But IF your landlord pays gas &/or electricity, they can increase up to another 2% (1% for each they pay).

bar chart that shows: City of LA Final Adopted FY2025-26 Budget 614 Layoffs The larger the number, the longer bar with Police - Civilians having the videst bar at 248 layoffs Police - Civilians 248 Personnel 57 Sanitation 44 Fire-Sworn 41 Info. Technology Agency 34 General Services 33 Transportation 29 Street Services 24 City Planning 23 Engineering 14 City Administrative Officer 10 Building and Safety 9 Street Lighting 8 Youth Development 8 Civil, Human Rights and Equity 7 City Clerk 4 Community Invest. for Families 4 Disability 4 Neighborhood Empowerment 4 Contract Administration 4 Econ. & Workforce Dev 2 Public Works Board 2 Aging 1

The City of LA is planning to declare a FISCAL EMERGENCY due to:

📈 Massive Liability Payouts
📈 Spending Over Budget
📉 Revenue Shortfalls

In order to balance the budget, 614 LAYOFFS are on the table. 🚨

(The City will do its best to transfer employees/fill vacant positions)