Though the buyout program helped the Bureau of Street Services to cut costs, the move to reduce street sweeping could take a big bite out the city’s revenue from parking tickets. However, with the city still facing a $750-million budget shortfall, that expansion plan is on hold, he said. Only 40% to 45% of city streets are swept regularly under the current system, Hagekhalil said, so scaling back the number of cleanings will allow other routes to be added. City officials say they had already been looking to cut the schedule for street sweeping in half next year, as part of a long-promised effort to redistribute the overall number of miles that receive cleanings.
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Those buyouts, along with the city’s ongoing hiring freeze, have left the agency with too few drivers to maintain the weekly cleaning schedule, Hagekhalil said.Įven if the city’s financial picture improves, the weekly cleaning schedule is not likely to return.
Roughly 10% of the workers at the Bureau of Street Services took the city up on its offer, including a dozen street-sweeper operators. Mayor Eric Garcetti had originally proposed 26 furlough days as a way of cutting costs union leaders persuaded him and City Council members to first offer buyouts of up to $80,000. Hagekhalil said the cuts were triggered in part by the city’s employee buyout program, which was approved by city leaders last year in an attempt to close a massive budget shortfall. Los Angeles has nearly 2,400 miles of streets that typically receive weekly cleanings by the fleet of sweepers, which collect food wrappers, discarded surgical masks and other detritus, keeping them from washing into storm drains and, ultimately, the ocean. “There’s going to be a lot of tickets, because it’s going to be confusing,” she said. Aura Vasquez, who served for several years on Koreatown’s neighborhood council, said she also fears that some residents, particularly those who lack computer access, will have a tough time determining which weeks are the right ones to safely park.
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