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Councilmember Chick warns city workers’ compensation costs are escalating and urges budget action
Summary
Councilmember Chick told the Los Angeles City Council the city’s workers’ compensation program is ‘‘on the path to out of control,’’ saying the current fiscal-year cost to the general fund exceeds $120,000,000 and urging the council to allocate up-front funding to contain claims.
Councilmember Chick told the Los Angeles City Council that the city’s workers’ compensation program is “on the path to out of control” and urged colleagues to plan budget action to address escalating costs.
Chick told the council she has reviewed materials in the Governmental Efficiency Committee and said it has been difficult to get a complete accounting of program costs. “We are absolutely going to have to bite the bullet in this year's budget and realize that we have to put some front money into this program in order to start to contain and eventually reduce the cost,” Chick said. She added that current fiscal-year costs “are somewhere over a $120,000,000 to our general fund,” excluding certain city staff costs that she said are hard to quantify because there is “no 1 single point of responsibility on this issue.”
Chick said the committee will provide a report with recommended “essential first steps” next week. She framed the measure as a budget-year priority rather than a single administrative fix: “we are going to have to bite the bullet in this year's budget,” she said.
The council did not adopt specific policy changes during the discussion; the transcript records Chick calling the item special and asking colleagues to note the forthcoming committee report. The clerk then prepared the roll and the item was recorded as approved on the agenda.
Context and next steps: Chick said staff and committee reports will be provided to the council and that the coming budget cycle will need to include up-front funding to begin containing claims costs. The council did not record detailed staff responses in the public portion of the transcript; Chick identified difficulty obtaining comprehensive staff cost figures and emphasized the need for a centralized point of responsibility.
Ending: The council approved the agenda item for consideration; Chick said she looks forward to partnering with colleagues and staff on follow-up work after the committee report is distributed.
