Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday advanced proposed amendments to the County Charter that would revamp county government, in part by expanding the Board of Supervisors from its current five members to nine and making the CEO an elected position.
The package of changes, which ultimately needs approval from voters, advanced on a 3-0 vote, with Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Kathryn Barger abstaining. With the board vote, county attorneys will draft ordinances that will return to the board to be formally placed on the November ballot.
During a lengthy and sometimes impassioned discussion, Mitchell questioned whether the package of proposed changes had been fully vetted, and how the motion had settled on the number of nine for the expanded board. She also questioned whether the changes could, as the proposal contends, be enacted with no cost to taxpayers.
Barger expressed concern that the motion considered by the board Tuesday was brought forth by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, with the involvement of Mitchell — who introduced the original motion in early 2023 that led to studies about ways of overhauling county government. Barger said Mitchell appeared to have been “cut out of the process.” In a statement after the vote, she also insisted that “bigger government doesn’t necessarily mean better government,” saying that regardless of size, board decisions “repeatedly get stuck in bureaucracy and an unwillingness to make tough decisions.”
The proposal OK’d by the board Tuesday also calls for the establishment of a Director of Budget and a Legislative Analyst, and creation of an independent ethics commission. Barger said she doesn’t believe the county has to wait for voter approval to create an ethics commission, and she plans to bring forward a motion next week to do so.
While unveiling the proposed package of charter amendments last Wednesday, Horvath said, “The last time the county meaningfully changed its form of governance was in 1912, before women had the right to vote, far before the end of segregation and well before comprehensive labor rights took hold.”
She called the proposals “the most comprehensive reform package for Los Angeles County government in over 100 years.”
Horvath and Hahn stressed that the proposal focuses on representation, efficiency and transparency in the governance structure for about 10 million residents of the county.
According to the motion by Horvath and Hahn, when the County Charter was adopted by the voters in 1912, the population was a little over 500,000, but the county now has 10 million residents and encompasses 88 incorporated cities within its border.
“As a result, Los Angeles County residents suffer deficits of representation and accountability,” according to the motion. “Each of the five-person Board of Supervisors, elected directly by voters, represents approximately 2 million constituents.”
Addressing the proposal to transition the CEO from an appointed to elected position, the motion states, “A governance structure that lacks an elected executive does not benefit from clearly delineated roles of accountability and district-specific interests might be prioritized over the county as a whole.”
An elected CEO would also be directly accountable to the voters and would significantly reduce the potential for parochialism, prioritizing the diverse regional population, according to the motion.
The proposal also calls for a commission that would review the county Charter every 10 years, annual open departmental budget hearings and creation of a task force to oversee the implementations of the changes.
Horvath and Hahn both stressed that the proposed changes would not involve any sort of tax hike.
“This proposal requires that it does not come at additional cost to the taxpayers, that we work within our budget,” Horvath said. “And with a $46 billion budget, I know we can do it.”
Hahn added, “We are not raising the taxes for this government reform.”
In a statement outlining the proposals, they noted, “We can no longer let a dated bureaucracy prevent us from more effectively addressing our homelessness crisis, making real progress on justice reform, or actualizing a government where Angelenos can meaningfully be at the decision-making table.”
In February of 2023, the board approved a motion by Mitchell and Horvath calling for a sweeping study of county governance, including a call for recommendations to improve public participation and representation of residents, possibly by expanding the size of the Board of Supervisors.
The concept of expanding the board has surfaced repeatedly over the years — as far back as 1926 — but it has never gained traction. Voters have rejected the idea on eight different occasions.
But Hahn said she expects a more favorable reception from voters this time.
“We’ve talked to voters and they overwhelmingly support expanding the board in this moment,” she said.
Under the timeline proposed by the motion, the county CEO would become an elected position and a County Legislative Analyst and Director of Budget would be established by 2028, with board expansion planned for 2032.
In a related action Tuesday, the board approved a motion by Mitchell requesting a report within a week on the board’s authority to create committees that could review motions and letters before they are placed on the agenda of the full Board of Supervisors. Mitchell noted that motions proposing legislation can currently be placed directly on the supervisors’ agenda without a system of prior vetting or analysis that typically occurs with bills in Sacramento or in various other city or county governments.
Mitchell’s motion asked that the report include identification of any legal limitations on how many members of the board could sit on each committee and any legal limitations on the subject matter that could be considered by them.