Thoughts From Your Valuation Source

In an article from the Daily News City Hall promised to take on some of the crunch from budget budget shortfall in the $400 million range. There were to be cutbacks and layoffs. Los Angelos Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also said there'd be higher charges for everything from parking tickets to fees at public golf courses.

This summer, it's become clear that the pain will be unequally distributed. After enthusiastically hiking all those promised fees, city officials reneged on the promise of frugality.

To convince the public that this time the city means business - after 25 years of not laying off a single employee - the mayor even came up with a specific number of employees, 767, to trim from a citywide work force of nearly 50,000. That was how many city jobs would be cut - about half of them purportedly filled by actual workers drawing a salary.

But that number has turned out to be as fictional as the "hiring freezes" City Hall undertakes from time to time to feign frugality. The Daily News has learned that, in the end, only four workers out of 50,000 may lose their jobs - and even the four likely will be safe, as city officials are still trying to find them other city jobs.

In fact, many of these "laid off" workers are finding themselves with better paying jobs.

About 78 workers found jobs in the city's three proprietary departments (Water and Power, World Airports and Port of Los Angeles), which typically pay even better.

What is so offensive about this is that local companies are laying off many in the area and while those people are struggling for jobs others are getting better ones in an attempt to mask that City Hall is not doing what it promised and is still charging more for everything they provide.