Last week, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass unveiled her new budget for the next fiscal year.
The proposed $12.8 billion budget would put spending for the city at around $1.3 billion less than the previous year with main cuts coming from the elimination of certain city employee positions, many of which are vacant, and from cuts to spending on homelessness.
The cuts stem from tax revenues that have been coming in below expectations and also due to the wider budget constraints that Los Angeles has been grappling with for many years. This includes new employee contracts that will cost the city billions of dollars more.
Bass has tried to quell questions about her stance on ending homelessness, yet cutting funding for programs by pointing out that much of the loss of funding is due to the expiration of Proposition HHH, which was a 10-year program that allocated a large amount to building housing for the unhoused.
She claims that the program started by Proposition HHH had been successful and that many of the new developments built by the program were to be opened this year.
The other main point of contention in the proposed budget is spending for LAPD. The budget aims to set aside an additional $150 million for the LAPD, bringing their budget up to $3.37 billion.
Bass says that this increase in spending is to promote the growth of the LAPD to around 9,100 officers by the end of the year, up from the current 8,900 officers. This is all with the ultimate goal of employing 9,500 officers by 2028 for the Olympics to be held in the city.
Despite some of the contentious plans, the budget will now go to the city council to be debated.