About us

Welcome

How we got here...

Background:

In July of 2020, Mayor Garcetti convened a group of Latino City Commissioners so that he could provide them with updates on his work for the Latino Community. The group shared a passion for advancing policy that is critical to the well-being of the Latino Community and established a steering committee which evolved into the Los Angeles Latino Equity and Diversity Initiative (LALEADI)

Latinos must hold positions at the City’s highest levels to advocate for our community strategically and effectively. This initiative intends to ensure that the City of Los Angeles provides the Latino community with fair and equitable services.

We have come together to develop a Latino Equity Five-Point Plan based on the city's infrastructure to advocate around principles that will seek proportional representation:

· Work towards equitable distribution of public investments

· Accountability and Measurable Impact

· Acknowledgement of the history of Latino people (US-born and immigrant)

· Coalition-building with the intention of collective action

· Identify and highlight the challenges Latinos face every day and often are ignored

What we found

Rec & Parks, Libraries & Fire/Polic

The following chart identifies the city budget and its designations. As the City comes out of the pandemic and starts to generate more tax base, you can see from the pie chart that 70% of the city’s budget is for Fire/Police, leaving public resource slim for Rec & Parks, Libraries and Public Works all of which benefit the 4 million constituents living in Los Angeles. More needs to be done to change the paradigm.

Budget

Police 53.8 %

Fire 16.5 %

Public Works 7.7 %

Other 8.2 %

Recreation and Parks 6.1 %

Library 4.6%

City Attorney 3.1 %

Unrestricted Revenues are 51.07 % of the City Budget. Restricted Revenues (48.93 %) include those from grants, fee supported and reimbursed programs, and special funds