Budget Day 2019

Join us Saturday, June 29th, 2019 when the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates host the annual Budget Day at City Hall in Downtown Los Angeles! Invitations are extended to everyone; Los Angeles stakeholders, Neighborhood Council Board Members, Elected Officials, City Employees and members of the press and anyone interested in learning more about our City’s budget.

Sat, June 29, 2019.   7:30 AM – 12:00 PM PDT

Location

On the 29th, registration and breakfast will begin at 7:30am in the 3rd floor rotunda. As breakfast concludes, guests will be invited into the John Ferraro Council Chamber for discussions on the City’s Budget. Not only about the changes and initiatives driving the FY19/20 plan, but the actual process and timeline.

Speakers for the day will include our Elected Officials, Department Representatives, and Budget Advocate leadership. As guests speakers are confirmed, additional details will be released.

Following the general session, attendees will be invited to smaller working groups with members from their respective areas in the City to discuss their greatest concerns, thoughts and suggestions on how their quality of life and how to improve it.

Here, each person will be able to share their priorities and get a better understanding of the Budget process to understand how they can influence the decisions made by our elected officials. Current members of the Budget Advocates will help facilitate the discussion and ensure everyone’s thoughts are documented so the Committee can incorporate them into their process this fiscal year.

When the discussion is concluded, elections will be held to fill vacant seats on the Budget Advocate Committee. Elections are open to stakeholders who have been formally appointed as a Budget Representative by their Neighborhood Councils.

For more information on registering for the event, what’s involved in Budget Advocacy or general questions, email the Executive Committee at LABudgetAdvocates@gmail.com.

The Budget Advocates are an elected body under Neighborhood Council system which represents the interests of stakeholders across Los Angeles with a focus on City services and how well they are funded.

Since the city has finite financial resources not all needs can be met and, prior to the establishment of the Budget Advocates under the City Charter, the beneficiaries tended to be special interest groups who had the ear of the City Council.

The city is broken into departments to provide services and each department creates a budget each year covering its projected costs based on parameters set by the mayor.  This is then assembled into the full City budget – now almost $10 billion – for the upcoming year.

Each year members of the Budget Advocates meet with the City departments to discuss how stakeholder concerns can be addressed within the department budgets.  They then draw up a list of recommendations and, after presenting them to the Mayor at a meeting in March, are released as part of the Budget Advocates’ annual White Paper.  Starting this year, the Budget Advocates will also be meeting with the mayor before he sets parameters for departments, so stakeholders interests are considered from the very beginning.

Budget Day is an opportunity for any interested resident to learn more about how the City operates and to give input on their concerns.

The Budget Advocates are elected by and rely on two Budget Representatives from each Neighborhood Council to ensure that local concerns about services and spending are relayed to the Budget Advocates throughout the year.  These grassroots concerns are given voice by the Budget Advocates to call for changes to the City’s budget so individual quality of life is maintained.

Because people at City Hall do not always see the repercussions at the local level, the only way to get change is to speak up.

Come and join us.