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Accomplishments

Since day one in Office, we’ve been fighting for transparency and accountability at City Hall. Through our maps, dashboards, and tech tools, we’ve made the City’s data and finances more accessible than ever before. You can track homelessness spending, look up any city official’s salary, create your own city budget, dig into the city’s liability payouts, and more. We have also issued 11 performance audits and transparency reports on programs that affect Angelenos’ daily lives, from LAPD helicopters to the City’s oversight of affordable housing.

To date, the City Controller’s Office has released:

16
Maps
12
Dashboards & Tools
11
Audits & Reports
8
Financial Reports

16 Maps

  • Bathrooms and Water Fountains Map - This map helps the public find a restroom or water fountain in the greater Los Angeles area.
  • Affordable Housing Covenants Map (1985 to 2022) - An affordable housing covenant is an agreement between the City and property owners to offer units for rent under market rate. This map helps the public find where all of these properties are located.
  • Eviction Notices Map - This map shows where eviction notices have been issued throughout Los Angeles.
  • “Cash For Keys” Map - This map shows where Tenant Buyout Agreements have occurred, a tactic landlords use to get tenants to move out of rent controlled units, oftentimes to re-rent their units to new tenants at market rate prices.
  • Zoning Map - This map helps the public understand what type of housing is allowed to be built, and where. The map shows zoning for single-family homes vs. any other type of housing (including affordable housing).
  • Affordable Housing Approvals Map - This map shows the location of deed restricted affordable housing units approved through planning entitlements in the City of LA between 2018 and 2024.
  • Interim Housing Map - This map helps the public understand the landscape of interim housing resources available to the unhoused.
  • Permanent Supportive Housing Map - This map helps the public understand the landscape of permanent supportive housing resources available to the unhoused.
  • Safe Parking Map - This map helps the public find sites that offer safe parking for people sleeping in their vehicles overnight.
  • Shelter Bed Availability Demo Map - Our audit on Interim Housing and Shelter Bed Data found serious issues with the quality of data on interim housing and shelter, making it nearly impossible to find an open shelter bed on any given night. We created this demo map to show policymakers how the City could connect people seeking shelter to available beds using a simple tool.
  • Oversized Vehicle Parking Restrictions Map - This map shows where it is illegal to park an oversized vehicle (e.g., RVs, buses, vans) overnight.
  • Oversized Vehicle Parking Citations Map - This map shows where tickets have been issued for people violating LAMC 80.69.4, which bans oversized vehicles from parking overnight.
  • 41.18 Arrests Map (Jan 2012 - May 2023 / Jan 2021 - Dec 2024) - To better understand a law targeting homelessness, we created a map and analysis of arrests under LAMC 41.18, which makes it illegal to sit, sleep, lie down, and place personal property in the public right-of-way in certain instances.
  • 2022 Map of Unhoused Deaths - We created a map of where unhoused people passed away in 2022 to bring visibility to the humanitarian crisis of homelessness.
  • LAPD Arrests Map - This maps out all arrests by LAPD from 2019 - 2022.
  • Spay, Neuter, and Shelter Map - This map shows all locations of free and discounted spay/neuter providers and animal shelters throughout Los Angeles.

12 Dashboards and Tech Tools

  • Interactive budget visualization website - Previously, if you wanted to find the budget for each City department or category, you’d have to comb through a big book or PDF. This tool makes it easy to visualize and understand the City’s budget.
  • Create Your Own Budget Tool empowers the public to create their own budget using real City numbers.
  • Homelessness Dashboard - Provides key data and statistics on homelessness, homelessness expenditure, summaries of spending for Inside Safe, Alliance Settlement, and Freeway Agreement
  • Homelessness Expense Tracker - For the first time in the City of LA, we started tracking homelessness expenditures and shared them in a database for the public to dig into.
  • Liability Claims Dashboard - Interactive analysis of liability payouts (payments the City has to make to those it has injured when it has failed to meet its responsibilities, or when City officials or employees directly harm– or fail to prevent avoidable harm to– residents)
  • City Council Discretionary Funds Spending - For the first ever, the public can see how Councilmembers are spending their discretionary funds.
  • Website of immigration resources and Council File Tracker - This helps the public find immigration resources and track immigration-related legislation making its way through the City Council.
  • Dashboard of Neighborhood Council Spending - There are 99 Neighborhood Councils in the City of LA that act as local advisory boards to City Council, and each one is allocated $32,000 per year. We created a dashboard for transparency on Neighborhood Council spending.
  • 2022 City of LA Payroll Employee Residence Analysis - We conducted an analysis of City employees’ payroll and found that 64% of LA City employees live outside Los Angeles, which amounts to $3.6 billion in payroll.
  • P-Card Spending Dashboard - A P-Card is a charge card that works similar to a consumer credit card but for the City of Los Angeles. This dashboard allows the public to explore transactions and analyze spending.
  • LA Animal Services transparency charts - Website with shelter metrics that are updated monthly so that the public can easily see how frequently dogs are walked, euthanasia rates, and more.
  • Dashboard of Departmental Staffing Vacancies with recommendations on reducing vacancies

11 Audit and Transparency Reports

8 Financial Reports

On top of our maps, tech tools, and audits, we have been laser focused on improving the way the City manages its finances. One month after taking office, we released our first financial report and issued recommendations to maintain a stable fiscal position. In 2023, we sounded the alarm on the City’s impending fiscal crisis and urged City officials to immediately change course to avoid a financial crisis. Our financial warnings were proven right as the City faced two consecutive years of budget deficits. Despite pushback to transparency and change from some within City Hall, we have maintained our commitment to the people of LA to be radically honest and transparent about the City’s finances. As the City’s financial watchdog, we have the power to shine a light on the City’s broken systems and urge City officials to implement our recommendations.

We are proud that many of our recommendations are now starting to be embraced and implemented by City Hall:

  • Realistic Budgeting for Liabilities: Our advocacy and public pressure on the impact of liabilities on the budget has resulted in the City budgeting for liability payouts more accurately for FY2026.
  • Realistic Revenue Projections: Since taking office, our revenue forecasts have been more accurate and in line with actual revenues received than what the CAO, Mayor, and City Council budgeted. The City has begun to use more realistic revenue projections in their budgeting process.
  • Chief Financial Officer: Many City officials are now on record supporting the idea of formalizing this position through Charter Reform.
  • Two-Year Budget Cycle: The Mayor and several City Councilmembers publicly voiced their support for reforming the budget process to a two-year cycle, and the idea is currently explored through Charter Reform.