5 in 5: Miguel Sangalang, Los Angeles’ Deputy Mayor for Budget & Innovation

Results for America Fellowship Alumni give five answers in five minutes. This month, we caught up with Miguel Sangalang, Deputy Mayor for Budget & Innovation for the City of Los Angeles, CA.

1. Summarize what you do and how you do it.
   I make sure some crazy ideas DON’T happen, and some crazy ideas DO happen.
2. Share something exciting that you’re working on.
   Right now we’re building an Angeleno Account for all residents and businesses. It’s essentially a digital key giving access to the digital front door of all our services to make our city more contactless and people-centered. This will be vitally important as we need to have a way to safely engage residents while providing much-needed services.
3. Tell us one thing you learned from someone else during your RFA Fellowship.
   My hats off to my colleagues in Baltimore, Andrew Kleine and Bob Cenname, who have really pushed outcome-based budgeting. It makes their city budget more transparent by drawing straight lines from where the money comes from to the desired outcomes which helps frame decision making.
4. If you could wave a magic wand and have any data or evidence, what would it be?
   Given how hard our residents have been hit by the pandemic, I really want to know what would be most effective in getting people into new jobs and back into a productive economy. Loss of income and work have been hitting our most vulnerable the hardest and we need to make sure what we’re doing can help them recover quickly and equitably. Either that and/or the science and evidence of an effective vaccine!
5. What’s the [pick-your-adjective] job you’ve ever had?
   The most formative job I ever had was a newly minted analyst in the Mayor’s Office. I originally came from a department where I learned about how to develop programs and understand how services work. But when I joined the executive branch I saw a different view of this vast puzzle we call public service — it really got me to understand that everyone has a part to play and is important in its own unique way.

Extra Question: How is the City of Los Angeles adapting its work in response to COVID-19 and urgent calls for racial equity?
One word to describe both is acceleration. The need is great and needed yesterday.

Interested in learning more about Los Angeles, CA’s work? Read the December 6, 2018 case study on Los Angeles’ cleaning of city streets, a process that begins with collecting data.

Miguel Sangalang participated in Results for America’s Local Government Fellowship.