ERNC Could Be Asked to Foot 2014 Election Bill

The failure of the proposed Measure A sales tax increase in last week's election has prompted the City of Los Angeles to consider alleviating their impending deficit by requiring neighborhood council's to cover the cost of their own elections, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.

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The proposal would ask neighborhood councils to put 20-percent of their annual budget toward the elections in 2014, or not hold them at all.

Miguel Santana, the city's chief administrative officer, told the Daily News that the failure of measure A meant that all city departments would be asked to make sacrifices, including the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which oversees neighborhood councils.

Representatives of neighborhood councils, who have seen their budgets decrease from $50,000 to $37,500 in recent years, were quick to rebuke the proposal.

"I feel that money should stay in the community," said Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council President Michael Nogueria. "The city is too top heavy. They need to tighten their belts rather than rely on us to fund positions."

Nogueria said he feared that if the neighborhood councils did not accept the proposal to fund their own elections, the city would instead cut their annual budgets and move the money to the general fund.