Good morning, and welcome to Los Angeles at the Register. It's Rebecca Ellis, bringing tales of brewing budgets from Los Angeles County, and my colleagues David Zaniser, Jenna Peterson, and Dakota Smith, with updates from City Hall.
It's been a year since Los Angeles County's top budget official warned her bosses of the day they would have to go into debt for a few extra billion dollars.
This money was not intended for modern hospitals or affordable housing complexes. It will go to thousands of people who, thanks to a change in state law, can for the first time file a lawsuit for sexual abuse they say they suffered while they were minors in county custody.
Chief executive Visia Davenport said the flood of claims amounted to “the most serious financial challenge in modern history”. She warned that the county may have to pay between $1.6 billion and $3 billion — the latter figure equal to the annual budget of all but a few county agencies.
“These cases could have a profound impact on the county budget for decades to come,” she told supervisors as part of her annual budget briefing.
But the day to tighten the belt has not yet come.
Davenport is expected to make her annual budget presentation to supervisors on April 23. But unlike last year, huge responsibility is not expected to be the topic of the day.
“Anticipation of these potentially devastating costs continues to guide our conservative approach to budgeting,” the district said in a statement. However, “there are no immediate budgetary impacts.”
Since the 2019 passage of the Child Victims Act, a state law that gave sexual assault victims a new opportunity to sue, the county has been inundated with claims related to its network of foster homes, shelters, camps and observation halls, some dating back far. To the fifties.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that officials need to start thinking about how the county, which is responsible for a social safety net for 10 million residents, will find the money to resolve these cases.
“Now will be that time. This is not going away,” said Doug Rushen, who said he has brought new staff into his law firm to handle the roughly 1,200 people he represents in cases against the county. “They have to allocate a bunch of money — fire “It has the name Sexual Assault Survivors Fund on it – specifically to be able to resolve these cases.”
A judge this week set the first trial date for a handful of cases against the county under the new law: May 15, 2025.
Acknowledging that the county will one day have to spend a lot of money to resolve these issues is, in the words of one official, “like saying the sky is blue” — something that is clear to all parties. Some have expressed fear of possible reduced budgets and structural programs in the future.
But officials say it's likely too early, and too many unknowns, for the county to begin budgeting for payments in these cases. Davenport previously said officials would consider cutting department budgets or drawing from the county's rainy day fund.
One of the biggest questions is how many cases there will be.
Last year, county officials said they expected about 3,000 plaintiffs. They underestimated themselves. There are nearly 5,000 so far, according to a source in the province.
About 2,300 people allege sexual abuse in camps and juvenile halls. Almost all of the other activities relate to the McLaren Children's Center, a since-closed shelter for foster children in El Monte.
The numbers continue to grow. In just the first week of April, the county filed at least three new lawsuits by people who say they were abused as teens.
“The reality is going to have to come out, and they're going to have to figure out how to pay for it,” said Adam Slater, whose firm Slater Schulman has filed 1,500 child sex abuse cases against the county.
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Playing status
– STREET SETTLEMENT: The City Council voted this week to pay up to $9.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a motorist who was injured during a traffic collision in the Hollywood Hills. The plaintiff's attorney criticized the city for placing a temporary traffic signal in a place that would be difficult for drivers to see. The council also approved a settlement of up to $21 million for a man who said he suffered brain damage after being struck by part of a street lamp.
– Gimme Shelter: Facing overcrowding at animal shelters, the City Council voted to temporarily stop issuing new dog kennel licenses. The city's six shelters were over capacity by more than 200%, resulting in dogs tripling in kennels or being forced to live in crates in hallways for months on end.
– Where did the money go? A state auditor found that California agencies failed to properly monitor the results of their spending on homelessness initiatives. The report issued by the California State Auditor's Office raises questions about the effectiveness of programs that have received billions of dollars in state funding.
– Moving Forward: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Director General Marty Adams has been selected by President Biden to serve on the National Infrastructure Advisory Board. Adams will retire from the DWP in the coming months.
– SUPES CLOSURE: Supporters protesting conditions at two Los Angeles County juvenile halls temporarily halted a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, sending the five supervisors into closed session. The coalition of groups said it wants supervisors to close the troubled halls.
– Déjà vu: Days later, Los Angeles County once again managed to avoid closing its two juvenile halls. A majority of the state Board of Control believes the county made enough eleventh-hour repairs to bring the halls into compliance with state standards, allowing them to keep the roughly 350 youth detained where they are.
– NO GOOD NEWS DAY: Hours before the state vote, a video was played in open court of staff at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, one of the halls under state scrutiny, standing by as a 17-year-old was assaulted. At least six young people. Some officers appear to laugh and shake hands with one of the attackers.
– FIREWORKS MONEY: South Los Angeles residents displaced from their homes by a botched fireworks explosion by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2021 will be allowed to stay in city-funded hotels for a few more months, thanks to a House vote. City Council on Friday. The displaced residents will remain in their rooms until the end of June.
– Defaced memorial: Copper thieves are suspected of stealing part of the Harrison Gray Otis memorial in MacArthur Park. Last month, they took a saw to the statue of the newsboy that stands next to Otis, who owned a newspaper that later became the Los Angeles Times.
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Fast strokes
Where is inside safe? Mayor Karen Bass' signature initiative to bring the homeless indoors went to two locations this week: near a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles' Wilmington neighborhood and the Gilbert Lindsay Recreation Center in South Central. The Wilmington operation focused largely on recreational vehicles, according to the sheriff's office.
On the agenda for next week: Bass will deliver her State of the City address Monday inside City Hall. This will be her second speech since taking office in 2022.
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