As chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, Councilmember Krekorian is overseeing an extraordinary city budget process that reflects the extraordinary fiscal crisis now confronting all levels of governments.
  
In each of the previous eight years that Councilmember Krekorian has served as Chair, the Budget & Finance Committee has spent most of April and May pouring over the Mayor's budget proposal, devoting weeks of daily public hearings in which committee members question every department head, challenge every revenue assumption and propose hundreds of potential changes in expenditures.  This year, the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic prevented such hearings from taking place on the normal schedule.  Moreover, the massive economic disruption caused by the pandemic, together with a drastic decline in city revenues, has created a level of uncertainty so great that the normal process could never suffice.  

Accordingly, the entire budget, and all motions relating to it, have been referred back to the Committee for further in-depth consideration throughout June and beyond.  The Budget and Finance Committee will continue its work throughout the fiscal year, with full knowledge that the City's financial circumstances are likely to continue to change dramatically.  The Committee and the Council will constantly need to reassess changed circumstances forthrightly and with discipline in order to maintain the basic city services that the people of Los Angeles depend upon.