LADWP general manager details 2025 gains and 2026 priorities, cites hiring and procurement hurdles

Los Angeles — Janice Quinones, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, told the City Council’s Energy and Environment Committee on Jan. 20 that the utility made significant progress in 2025 and identified a set of priorities for 2026 while urging help to fix hiring and procurement constraints.

Quinones said LADWP “serves about 4,000,000 customers, and we have a budget of about $9,400,000,000,” and described workforce and infrastructure gains since she joined in May 2024. She reported the utility achieved APPA’s diamond safety award, launched a department-wide safety platform (Intelex), and held a safety week with more than 5,000 staff participating.

Why it matters: Quinones framed the department’s work as tied to broader city goals including LA 100 and local water resilience. She described a multi-pronged 2026 agenda that pairs grid modernization with local water investments — steps she said are needed to reach the city’s clean-energy and water-supply objectives.

Key infrastructure updates and targets included the Elan solar-and-storage facility (described as about 400 megawatts and 1,200 megawatt-hours of storage), which Quinones said helps move the utility to “60% carbon free energy as of 2025” and that LADWP is now fully divested from coal. She also highlighted Pure Water Los Angeles and the Donald C. Tillman groundwater/replenishment project, saying Tillman’s expansion will double capacity to serve roughly 500,000 customers and that Pure Water LA aims to produce about 230,000,000 gallons of purified recycled water per day.

On wildfire response and recovery, Quinones reviewed work in the Pacific Palisades after last year’s fires: rebuilding more than 1,800 power poles, installing roughly 334,000 feet of conductors, flushing nearly 100 miles of pipe to restore water quality, opening a utilities rebuild operations center and waiving water bills for affected customers. She also announced a HomeLA program offering up to $10,000 for electrification for Palisades residents.

Quinones reiterated a 2035 goal for 100% carbon-free power and said the Scattergood modernization project is a critical near-term reliability resource that must be completed to meet once-through cooling requirements and to provide inertia and spinning reserves while broader renewable and transmission upgrades proceed.

Council members asked detailed follow-ups. Council Member Padilla pressed on the Valley generating station’s retirement timeline and how Scattergood’s repowering will change that facility’s role; Quinones said generation repowering will occur but could not provide a firm timeline. Council Member Gerardo asked whether the proposed asset management office would include real estate and other public assets; Quinones said the enterprise asset management effort will incorporate power-system assets and expand to include facilities and related risk-driven planning.

Procurement and hiring limits: Quinones made a pointed request for support on internal authority and contracting rules. She said LADWP’s general manager procurement authority is only $150,000 and that typical procurement processes can take about 300 days. She described a hiring pattern in which the department hired roughly 3,000 people but netted about 300 positions, and called those two constraints a major operational barrier.

Quinones said these limits force many RFPs and slow work on projects that would reduce backlogs and speed new customer connections. She urged council support for adjustments—by code or other means—to allow the utility to hire needed staff and contract more quickly.

Other operational reforms: The general manager described an enterprise asset management office, the rollout of Workday to modernize payroll and HR systems (financial modules expected by June), an AMI-guided outage management effort, a new business concierge to reduce new-connection handoffs, and a data-lake and GIS dashboards to improve decision-making and customer communication.

Decisions at this meeting: The committee approved consent items 2–7 by recorded vote (four ayes; one member absent) and took no formal action on item 1, which was a verbal report.

What’s next: Committee members thanked Quinones for the report and asked staff to continue follow-ups and briefings on specific projects (Valley generating-station planning, Donald Tillman timeline, Mid-Valley facility coordination with Metro). Chair Adrienne Nazarian said no action was required on the verbal report and adjourned the meeting.

Quotations in this article are taken from statements delivered orally at the Jan. 20, 2026 Energy and Environment Committee meeting.