LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday proposed laying off more than 1,600 government workers in an attempt to close a nearly $1 billion budget gap amid a slumping economy while the city contends with the costly job of rebuilding a seaside neighborhood leveled in a January wildfire.
The prospect of chopping hundreds of government jobs comes as the latest unwelcome news for the first-term Democrat, who will stand for reelection next year.
In an address to the city council, Bass called the municipal workforce the ''city's greatest asset'' but said cuts were needed as City Hall wrestles with uncertainty in Washington, higher costs for worker salaries and benefits, a slowing economy, and the daunting work of rebuilding the affluent Pacific Palisades community.
"We have a very difficult budget to balance," Bass said. She called her decision to propose job cuts a ''last resort.''
David Green, president of Service Employees International Union, Local 721, which represents over 10,000 city workers, said the union would be looking for new funding sources and other alternatives to slashing jobs.
''We're not going to allow the out-of-touch bureaucrats ... to balance the budget on the backs of city workers,'' Green said in a statement.
Late last month, Bass and the city council appealed to Sacramento for nearly $2 billion in disaster recovery aid as the city faces a projected deficit that Bass' office pegged at nearly $1 billion. She plans to return to Sacramento this week to seek additional state funds that could reduce the proposed layoffs.
The Palisades Fire destroyed more than 6,800 structures and killed at least 12 people.
