LA City Council OKs budget that cuts public safety funding, reduces layoffs

The Los Angeles City Council approved a revised budget Thursday, May 22, that slashes proposed layoffs by more than half but also scales back funding for public safety, as the city grapples with a $1 billion budget deficit.

The final vote, which came late afternoon after almost entire day of discussion, was 12-3, with Councilmembers Traci Park, John Lee and Monica Rodriguez opposed. A major focus of the debate ahead of the final vote centered on cuts to public safety, which the three dissenting members argued would undermine emergency services.

The revised FY 25-26 budget reduces layoffs in Mayor Bass’ proposed spending plan from 1,647 to about 600. It restores 133 of the 400 civilian LAPD positions that were facing elimination–including those who process DNA rape kits, perform fingerprint and crime scene analysis– and preserves all 62 filled positions in the Animal Services Department.

The budget also establishes a new Bureau for Homelessness Oversight — part of the city’s response to the potential dismantling of LAHSA and growing concerns about transparency in homelessness spending, following the county’s withdrawal of funding from the joint city-county program.

But the council also trimmed the Fire Department’s proposed funding increase and cut planned LAPD officer hiring, from 480 to 240. The budget now heads to the mayor’s desk for final approval.

“Before us is a revised budget proposal that’s balanced. It protects core city services from being decimated, and it keeps 1,000 city employees in their jobs serving the people of Los Angeles,” said Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, which crafted the recommended changes. “This is the most serious budget crisis the city has seen in nearly two decades.”

The city’s nearly $1 billion deficit is driven by record-level liability payouts, rising labor costs, slower-than-expected revenue, as well as overspending. In April, Mayor Bass proposed a $13.95 billion budget that would eliminate 1,647 filled positions. Those cuts, along with new revenue sources, were expected to reduce the deficit to about $800 million.

The mayor’s proposal included funding reductions in departments like planning, transportation, sanitation and animal services. City officials say the savings were made possible by shifting some positions off the general fund, cutting Inside Safe homeless program spending by 10%, and moving over half of interim housing funds into the unappropriated balance, suspending some new programs in the Fire Department, and reducing planned LAPD hiring.

With the January wildfires still fresh in residents’ minds – and criticism mounting over the Fire Department’s lack of equipment and preparedness—Bass dedicated a big portion of her proposed budget to public safety.

Her plan included an increase of $103 million for the Fire Department, bringing its operating budget to $923 million. However, after amendments by the Budget Committee, the department’s year-over-year increase amounts to just $48 million.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, the area hardest hit by the January wildfires in the city, said she could not support a budget that rolls back critical investments in fire services.

“I just can’t help but observe that in the wake of the most devastating fire in our city’s history, the proposal in front of us doesn’t project a budget that adequately meets the day-to-day needs of our fire department, never mind our ability to respond to major emergencies,” Park said.

Lee, who chairs the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, also criticized the budget for cutting funding to the fire and police departments.

“It’s about time that this city takes a look at what are we supposed to be doing as a city, and what do we do as a city that are feel-good things, but aren’t necessarily true to what exactly are the core services of the City of Los Angeles,” he said.

But the council members backing the revised budget said the committee had to make painful choices to preserve essential city functions, especially in public safety.

Councilmember Tim McOsker argued that the fire department’s budget increase — one of the largest in the city’s proposal — comes at a significant cost elsewhere.

“We cannot pretend that salaries are not part of the budget, they just are,” McOsker said. “The circumstance we found ourselves in with a budget presented to us with 1,650 layoffs of critical services across the city is because of this admirable decision, this admirable, aspirational hope that we could substantially grow new services in fire.”

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield also defended the committee’s decision as a necessary trade-off to preserve other core services in the city.

“At this current moment in this budget, this was the best lemonade we made with the lemons that we had, and that was the budget that was proposed,” he said.

Another huge area of debate was the creation of a new homelessness oversight bureau within the Housing Department, which aims to centralize management and improve accountability for the city’s homelessness response.

Opponents argued the move was a significant policy shift that didn’t belong in a budget process, supporters, however, defended the move as a cost-neutral consolidation aimed at improving coordination and oversight.

A motion to refer the item to a committee for further discussion was ultimately defeated.

The Department of Animal Services, which faced the potential closure of half the city’s animal shelters and the loss of 62 filled and 60 vacant positions, will receive $5 million from the unappropriated balance to restore filled positions and maintain current service levels across all six city-operated shelters.

Other restored services include staffing in transportation, city planning, and sanitation, as well as funding to resume tree trimming, repair sidewalks and streetlights, and improve street safety.