Fueled by voters’ approval of a ballot measure to ‘re-imagine’ L.A.-area criminal justice, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Nov. 10, approved the creation of a committee tasked with making sure funding for the effort is allocated properly and fairly.
The new Measure J advisory committee is essential, officials said, to establish “an inclusive and transparent process on the allocation of funds” from the measure.
The measure, which voters approved Nov. 3, changes the county’s charter to establish at least a 10% baseline of county general fund revenue set aside for alternatives to incarceration.
Those alternatives are underpinned by programs that the measure would fund — programs which for the first time are seeing funding baked in to the county’s charter for the long term. They include:
- Community-based youth development programs.
- Job training and jobs to low-income residents, especially construction jobs for the expansion of affordable and supportive housing.
- Access to capital for small minority-owned businesses, with a focus on Black-owned businesses.
- Rent assistance, housing vouchers and accompanying supportive services to those at-risk of losing their housing, or without stable housing.
- Community-based restorative justice programs.
- Pretrial noncustody services and treatment.
- Community-based health services, health promotion, counseling, wellness and prevention programs, and mental health and substance-use disorder services.
- The board will consider on Tuesday the formation of a Measure J advisory committee.
The board is moving swiftly on implementing Measure J — noting that the measure is “explicit in its prohibition of the use of these revenues to support law enforcement or carceral systems.”
“It’s a lot to ask. Why? Because there’s a lot at stake,” said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, a leading proponent of reform on the board.
The inability to access that chunk of money has roiled L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and other criminal justice interests, who say it amounts to defunding the police.
Villanueva has decried the shift in funding as a critical hit to his department, which he said needs the annual revenue chunk to fund positions and a sprinkling of substations in some county communities.
But supervisors — with the exception of Kathryn Barger, who early on worried about whether the measure would handcuff finances for future boards — have stood by the effort.
But even Barger on Tuesday suggested that the effort to abide by the voters’ will could ultimately even help re-imagine and bolster probation camps in northern L.A. County, where funding could be used for capital improvements.
With the board’s action on Tuesday, supervisors set forth a spending plan process to be led by the directors of the county’s initiatives on dealing with racial disparities.
The plan approved Tuesday envisions a 17-member Re-Imagine LA Advisory Committee comprised of county department leadership, criminal justice system-impacted people, labor representatives and community-based organizations and/or advocates.
Ultimately, the committee will be tasked with ensuring that Measure J budget recommendations are informed by “community need” and “racial equity.”
In conjunction with the county’s chief executive officer, leaders of the initiative will prepare the Measure J recommended spending plan and the CEO will submit the proposed spending plan to the Board of Supervisors for approval.
