Los Angeles is experiencing a full-scale budget crisis. A month ago, the financial gap was estimated at just $1 billion, and Mayor Karen Bass has another headache. And among many services, they rely on the city government to fix streets, repair sidewalks, maintain parks, maintain bumps, and pay police and firefighters.
On Monday, Bass will announce its proposed spending plan for 2025-26, writing about its strategies to eliminate budget shortfalls.
With that in mind, here are some things to keep in mind:
How many city workers are eligible for layoffs?
City manager Matt Zabo is a top analyst in the municipal budget, and warned a few weeks ago that layoffs were “almost inevitable.” But how many will actually be shown in the mayor’s proposed budget?
A few weeks ago, Szabo’s office sent the city department a list of positions considered for the layoffs. Overall, these positions exceeded 3,500. On Saturday, Bass told The Times that the budget team shaved the numbers below 2,000.
The bass can’t be more accurate than saying it was hovering over 1,500 a few days ago.
Many times, Bass says he’s looking for alternatives to layoffs. Most importantly, the state’s financial relief.
“We need to propose a layoff,” Bass said Friday at an event hosted by Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles. “But I don’t think that will happen, OK? I don’t. I won’t. But I have to suggest it.
“I believe there are some solutions like those from the state, and it helps us, so there’s no need to end up laying off,” she added.
The city council will need to change the mayor’s budget until the end of May and approve it. By then, city officials should have a clearer idea about whether Gov. Gavin Newsom will come to the rescue.
Where does the bass cut her?
One thing we certainly know is that Bass doesn’t want to cuts to the fire department. She said this last week while visiting Pacific Palisade.
The city’s fire department has long argued that the department is severely underfunded. That message has grown even greater after the disaster in January.
So where else can you cut the base? Police stations are probably one of the goals, due to their vast size when compared to most other urban institutions.
The mayor’s budget team was able to slow the hiring of new police officers, allowing the staff of the sworn in to fall below the 8,733 budget this year, down from about 10,000 years five years ago. Such a move might be politically easier now, as both murder and shooting have fallen double digits.
Bass can also reduce the number of non-student employees in LAPD.
Meanwhile, some city halls have heard rumbling about massive cuts to the planning department. It handles development applications, updates zoning plans, and updates the troubled animal services department. Many other institutions could also face deep cuts.
What happens inside Safe?
The moment she took office, Bass made fighting the homeless a top priority. The majority of that effort is safe and will move people from the streets to temporary, permanent homes.
The program is expensive and requires leases at dozens of hotels and motels. Two years later, some city councillors have expressed concern about the cost.
“We can’t afford to do everything through hotels and motels. We need other options,” said Councillor Bob Blumenfield, who serves the council’s budget committee.
Bass told The Times last week that she had no intention of reducing her signature initiative. She is about to tap on new sources of funding, such as Measse A, a half-cent sales tax approved by voters last year to fund homeless services.
“I’ll keep people in the residential area. I don’t care what it needs,” Bus said at the Black Life Matter event on Friday. “I’m going to keep doing that, knowing that the four of us won’t wake up tomorrow morning. They’ll die on the streets, and they’ll look like you.”
How about Kenneth Mezia?
Since taking office in 2022, city manager Kenneth Mezia has been one of the most outspoken critics of city hall spending decisions. Last year, he repeatedly raised alarms about Bass’ decision to eliminate more than 1,700 seats, saying it would hurt urban services.
Does Mejia’s megaphone get even bigger as the actual layoffs are on the table? And will his office be targeted in a new round of cuts?
Bass pushed last year to eliminate 27 vacant seats at Mezia’s office. Ultimately, nine of these posts were kept in the book, but according to Mejia spokesman Diana Chang, there was no money to pay them.
“We cannot hire or fill them without providing funds for them,” Chan emailed. “It is unlikely that these positions will be met this fiscal year.”
Some Mezia supporters spoke about him as a potential base challenger in June 2026. Mezia said she is not interested now and instead is raising money for his own reelection.
One thing is certain: if the mayor proposes new cuts to the controller’s office, Mezia ensures that the public knows about it.
Will the mayor close the department?
Every time the city faces budgetary issues, small departments are placed in chopping blocks, with mayors and councillors trying to blend with the larger institutions.
This time, we are the institutions that oversee youth development programs, vocational training, and services for the elderly among the most vulnerable. The mayor was able to try and combine either of them with a larger division.
Bass can also take pages from its predecessors and try to consolidate several large institutions.
In 2013, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, his final year in office, called for a merger of the Buildings and Safety Bureau and the Urban Planning Bureau, which he saw as a way to cut the deficit for property developers.
That effort was opposed by Eric Garcetti, who replaced Villalaigoza a few months later. The merger also became a major plot point in the federal assault and bribery prosecutors of Raymond Chan, former director of the Department of Building and Safety.
Chan, whose work was at stake by the merger, was accused of arranging a $600,000 bribe to then competitor Jose Huiser in exchange for Huser’s work against the merger. In October, Chang was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
According to the prison, the 68-year-old Chang is a prisoner at a federal correctional facility on Terminal Island, and his release is scheduled for 2035.
look? The budget might be interesting!
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