Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has appointed Jeanne Holm as deputy mayor for budget and innovation as the city navigates a pandemic-induced recession.
“I’m honored and excited to work with Mayor Garcetti to lift up Angelenos by leveraging the best of our City’s innovation, dedicated workforce, and resources,” said when her appointment was announced Friday.
Holm replaces Miguel Sangalang, who is moving to another city department.
Holm will be responsible for redefining and streamlining the daily operations of local government, further developing the city’s open data portal, reforming procurement processes, making service deployment more equitable, and bringing more public services online. The office also oversees the annual city budget and six departments with over 3,000 employees.
Holm, who has 35 years of experience in technology, innovation, data science and management, was promoted from the position of chief data officer and senior technology advisor, which she has held since May.
Her appointment comes as the city grapples with a potential budget gap.
The first financial status
“The magnitude of this revised year-end revenue gap cannot be understated,” Llewellyn wrote. “A $400 million revenue gap is equal to 6% of the 2020-21 budget and would exhaust all but $14 million of the city’s total reserves inclusive of the reserve fund.”
Garcetti said of Holm’s appointment that “strong and creative leadership is absolutely critical to navigating an unprecedented pandemic, deep economic devastation, and a severe fiscal crisis — and I have no doubt that Jeanne Holm will be a powerful force in steering our city toward a future of equity and resilience."
Holm created the mayor’s Telecommunications and Digital Equity Forum, established key partnerships with telecommunications companies, and led the OurCycleLA program, all of which have served to bridge the digital divide for the city’s lowest-income residents, according to the mayor.
Prior to joining the city government in 2016, Holm worked at NASA, where, according to the mayor, she led large-scale budget changes during government downsizing that saved hundreds of millions of dollars while improving service and innovation across the agency. While working for the Obama administration, she led the development of data.gov which, has been credited with $3 trillion in national economic growth coming through the release of government data.
Sangalang leaves the Mayor’s Office to serve as Interim General Manager of the Bureau of Street Lighting within the Department of Public Works.
