Council declines RBFA’s offer to fund study
The Redondo Beach City Council declined to discuss an offer, made by the Redondo Beach Firefighters Association, to fund the second half of a study examining the costs of contracting fire services from Los Angeles County.
During the open public comment portion of Tuesday night’s meeting, RBFA President Greg Allen stood at the lectern to voice his displeasure with the City’s continued handling of its public safety employees; both firefighters and police officers in Redondo Beach have been working under an expired agreement with the City since July 2018.
Allen touched on a number of subjects during his remarks, including skepticism toward the City’s analysis of LA County Fire’s study, which examines costs for Redondo Beach to contract its services out, and disband its own city fire services. The move has been described as a potential cost-saving measure in the long run, as Redondo struggles to figure out how to manage climbing pension costs.
Last month, the City Council stopped its exploration by declining to approve a plan that would have paid LA County $24,000 for a deeper dive into the survey. That money was already set aside in the city budget. According to Councilman John Gran, cost-savings projections did not meet his minimum annual threshold of $1.5 million. His vote broke the tie, quashing the plan.
Near the end of Allen’s remarks, he made his pitch: RBFA would donate $24,000 to the City of Redondo Beach to continue the survey, subject to Council approval.
But at the end of the night, a majority of the City Council declined to further discuss RBFA’s offer, once again stymieing the survey.
Muratsuchi K-12 funding bill moves forward
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi’s Assembly Bill 39, which plans to raise California to the top ten in K-12 per-pupil spending nationally, passed the State Senate Appropriations Committee last week. The bill proposes aspirational funding targets for California’s Local Control Funding Formula, aiming to increase the state’s K-12 funding by $35 billion over an unspecified number of years.
“For too long, California has been below the national average in per-pupil K-12 funding. This bill will establish strong school funding targets to provide full and fair funding for all California children, regardless of where they live,” Muratsuchi said.
This bill proposes a 58 percent increase to the 2018-19 cost of the funding formula, equal to approximately $35 billion above the current funding level. The proposed increase is designed to ensure that districts are able to cover increased fixed costs by expanding a Base Grant portion that provides the greatest spending flexibility for districts.
