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Council notes deferred‑maintenance report, schedules quarterly risk‑management updates after Cal/OSHA concerns
Summary
Councilmembers noted a city report on deferred maintenance and directed quarterly updates from the city's risk-management team after staff described a shortage of in‑house safety professionals and active Cal/OSHA citations at city facilities; consultants are being used to prioritize work.
The Los Angeles City Council voted to note and file a report on citywide deferred maintenance and loss-prevention, and directed the city's risk-management office to provide quarterly updates to the Government Efficiency Committee on progress addressing Cal/OSHA violations and other safety hazards.
Councilmember Jackie Chick introduced the item and called the issue "a very serious and growing problem" tied to worker-compensation costs and public-safety risks. "I'm talking ... the millions of dollars every year we're spending in workers' comp payouts because we have workers being injured because of Cal OSHA violations, because of deferred maintenance issues," Chick said.
Richard Welch, director of risk management in the Office of Finance, told the council the city had contracted two outside safety consultants to perform in-depth analyses of large departments; Street Services was nearly complete and Recreation and Parks reports were imminent. Welch said the consultants were instructed to look at both procedural changes and physical defects and to prioritize work tied to Cal/OSHA exposure. He also said the city is understaffed in safety professionals and has "a total of 6 positions" addressing safety across large city operations.
"One of the problems we have ... is that the city is way understaffed with safety professionals relative to the standards in the industry," Welch said, adding that the city planned to fill safety-engineer positions and hire a safety administrator after personnel department clearance.
Chick and other councilmembers asked staff to provide quarterly progress reports and to coordinate consultant findings with the Department of General Services to prioritize immediate Cal/OSHA hazards. The council approved the recommendation to note and file and accepted staff's offer to report quarterly; the recorded vote showed 12 ayes.
Ending: Councilmembers framed the action as a procedural step to obtain prioritization and funding recommendations; they signaled interest in tracking future Cal/OSHA-related settlements and worker‑safety outcomes as the risk-management effort proceeds.
