INGLEWOOD- Despite sponsorships from the L. A. Clippers, WOW Media and KJLH, the city of Inglewood is short of funds to pay outstanding invoices related to the Taste of Inglewood. The Inglewood Police Department is requesting to dip into Asset Forfeiture Funds to pay an outstanding invoice for the Taste of Inglewood that was submitted after the event.
Meridian Defense Group is owed $7,661.50 for setting up barriers at the event, and although the payment was to come from the General Fund, it is now being covered by asset forfeiture funds which are typically earmarked for gang intervention programs. It appears to serve as a “piggy bank” to the city as described by former Accounting Manager Barbara Ohno.
Barbara Ohno, former city of Inglewood Budget & Accounting Manager
Inglewood Planning Commissioner David Rice is the creator/organizer of Taste of Inglewood.
The city has sufficient funds in their nonprofit fund, Inglewood Community Services Corporation, which is used to pay for expenses for various city events (Holiday Tree Lighting, Turkey Giveaway, etc.) so it is unclear why those funds aren’t being tapped into for the Commissioner’s event.
CSG Consulatants, will be paid an additional $140,000 to continue providing plan check services to the Building and Safety department. It is not clear why the city’s union don’t have issue with their members work being outsourced.
Peculiar invoices submitted by TOT Housing Solutions are expected to be paid from. CDBG funds for emergency housing for three senior citizens. The invoices fail to describe either the housing location or the landlords. The staff report also lacks an agreement detailing payment of rent and food that are itemized on the invoices.
Public Works is requesting $953,350 to lease an additional (21) cars, with an option to buy. The staff reports the city having a fleet of 500 vehicles of which 12 need to be replaced.
One of the cars listed as needing to be replaced is the Chevy Tahoe Mayor James Butts totaled when he ran a red light at an entrance to the University of Southern California (USC).
It is unbelievable that the city has a 500 car fleet, when the police department has less than 200 on duty officers and perhaps less than 100 department staffers who drive city cars to perform work for the water, public works and parks and recreation departments.
This is the city’s approx. third request to upgrade city vehicles which totals nearly $4 million dollars. In February of this year, the city spent $1 million dollars to replace 15 vehicles.
Finally, the Finance Department is formally requesting the city council adopt the FY 2019-2020 budget which shows a measly $92,000 surplus.
3 Comments
Okay let us put our thinking caps on …
In 2021 there was a total of 833 people who received payroll checks from the City of Inglewood. That number includes newly hired and retired-during-the-year employees including the part-time employees who worked less than 2080 hours (40 hours X 52 weeks ).
Somehow the city has a fleet of 500 cars meaning more than half (since 833 divided by 2 is 416) may have been awarded permission to use city owned cars not just once in while but every day.
When we considered each of the city departments how many in finance do you think need a city vehicle to crunch numbers?, or how many of the building department need to leave city hall ( we did out source the inspector jobs didn’t we)?, how many Park and Recreation employees need to go to more than one location?, how many library workers have to Daily go between our 2 operating libraries?, how many city attorneys need to go to court other than across Regent street every day? Yes public works which includes street signal repairmen, facility electricians, carpenters, pumblers, and general fix everything that breaks handymen certainly need vehicles as do the Park Maintenance Crews that routinely take care of our parks, our street medians and yes parts of the SOFI grounds, But how many administrative assistants (aka secretary types) need daily vehicles,?
Enough is enough and why oh why would we “lease” cars rather than buy them at an average of $45,398 each for a limited time.
This is absolutely crazy !!!! As for the police department…..Back when we had close to a full staff (aka prior administration days) fewer than 20 black and white patrol cars were on the streets during any shift. Some skeptics or satirical types might ask what are we supplying other law enforcement agency employees our cars?
Oh please how many ISHUTTLE buses do we use to take Inglewood residents to their jobs ant LAX ? Or how many senior citizen Itrams do we have?
Nope something is wrong with this picture…we outsourced our big vehicle needs Waste pick-up and Fire Protection.
Somehow just these few examples of out of control spending should make us say we need different people making decisions about how our resources should be spent.
VOTE AS IF YOUR HOME AND Your QUALITY OF LIFE matter
These costs are exorbitant and Taste of Inglewood = Taste of Bankruptcy
If the City would revamp its exorbitant salaries to employees, it may have money in its General Fund to cover events and services.