Financial Disaster Looms Larger As Los Angeles City Council Delays Budget Cuts For Another 30 Days

City workers and union members won a victory against financial prudence in Los Angeles today.

The city council spent all day yesterday discussing drastic cuts made necessary by LA’s $208 million budget gap. The city’s budget analysis proposed around 1,000 job cuts to save money.

And so the municipal unions went wild, packing the meeting with hundreds of workers.

In response, the city council voted to postpone budget-related layoffs for 30 days.

Frighteningly, on the same day the council members voted against cutting jobs and consolidating the disability, human services and environmental affairs department, it also agreed to discuss making jobs cuts in the police and fire departments.

Even worse, LA council members are talking about "unconventional ways" of addressing their looming financial crisis.

"If I’m facing hard times . . . I’m going to go to my uncles. I’m going to go to my aunt. I’m going to ask them to borrow money," Councilman Jose Huizar said, according to the LA Times. "But I’m going to tell them: ‘You know, I’ve got this ’67 Chevy. I could sell it a year from now and maybe I’ll pay you back with that.’ Can we do anything like that?"

The problem, of course, is that LA’s uncle is the State of California, which is facing a giant budgetary crisis of its own. It doesn’t have the money to bail out LA. And muni bond investors are unlikely to love the idea that LA will find some way to raise cash in the future to compensate for its inability to restrain spending now.

Will the ratings agencies wait 30 days before slamming LA? We’ll see.