Nov 14, 2023; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a press conference on Nov. 14, 2023, after a fire under Interstate 10 severely damaged the overpass in an industrial zone near downtown Los Angeles, Saturday on Nov. 11, 2023. The large blaze burned trailers, cars and other things in storage lots beneath a major highway near downtown Los Angeles, forcing the temporary closure of the roadway. Mandatory Credit: Yannick Peterhans-USA TODAY
Los Angeles, California – By all accounts, Los Angeles is tightening its belt.
Mayor Karen Bass on Saturday signed a $13 billion city budget that reflects both the fiscal strain and the political compromises facing the nation’s second-largest city. The plan for the upcoming fiscal year, beginning July 1, aims to close a nearly $1 billion deficit — a shortfall driven by swelling city payrolls, lagging tax revenues, and mounting legal costs.
The cost-cutting comes with consequences: hundreds of city workers will face layoffs, and multiple city services — from sanitation to homelessness outreach — will see reductions or restructuring. The mayor’s own signature homelessness initiative, Inside Safe, will take a 10% cut, including a controversial move to shift from single to double occupancy in temporary shelters.
But not every program faced the knife. In a late agreement with City Council leaders, Bass managed to preserve LAPD hiring levels after an initial proposal cut 240 police recruits. The revised budget now calls for councilmembers to identify funds to hire those officers within 90 days — a political win for pro-public safety advocates, though the cost remains unclear.
The city’s financial woes, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield noted, were in part self-inflicted. Last year’s generous labor agreements with city unions added an estimated $250 million in recurring costs. Combined with lower-than-expected revenue from sales, business, hotel, and property taxes — which together fund over a third of the city’s services — the gap became too large to ignore.
“You can’t take a billion dollars out of the budget and not have reduced services,” Blumenfield said. “I don’t want to put lipstick on this situation.”
Some programs saw strategic reinvestment. Funding for unarmed response teams — professionals who handle mental health and substance abuse crises — will grow by $14 million, part of a broader effort to divert non-violent emergency calls away from armed police. Parking meter fees will rise, projected to bring in another $14 million annually.
The Fire Department, despite the broader austerity, will receive a 9% budget boost to hire firefighters and replace aging equipment. Yet in a symbolic concession, the mayor’s proposed street medicine teams were eliminated, saving $12 million.
Bass also preserved funding for cultural institutions like the Hollyhock House and reversed her earlier plan to eliminate the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. A new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight was created to track how L.A. spends billions on its growing unhoused population.
Still, with more than 38,000 city positions on the books and 32,405 currently filled, the road ahead will be marked by hard choices — and fewer resources to meet growing demands.
