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M O N D AY, M AY 22- M AY 28, 2023
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Los Angeles council approves amended version of city’s 2023-24 budget By Jose Herrera, City News Service
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he Los Angeles City Council Thursday voted 13-1 to approve its amended version of Mayor Karen Bass’ proposed $13 billion city budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year. The budget includes an unprecedented $1.3 billion to address housing and homelessness and approximately $3.2 billion for the Los Angeles Police Department. Following the recommendations of the Budget, Finance and Innovation Committee, Council President Paul Krekorian said in a statement that the council “built on the broad outline of the mayor’s proposed budget” with amendments to ensure “transparency and accountability” in the city’s spending. The 2023-24 budget tops $13 billion for the first time, a $1.31 billion, or 11%, increase, from the prior fiscal year and includes $566 million in a reserve fund. Krekorian in a statement thanked the mayor, Councilman Bob Blumenfield — chair of the Budget Committee — and the entire City Council for completing a budget that “honors the city’s priorities, respects our fiscal realities and fully reflects the needs of all our constituents.”
“I was proud to see the Council set aside very real differences to focus on areas of agreement, reflecting the best of consensus building,” Krekorian said in a statement. The budget invests in affordable and supportive housing, funding for more personnel — police, firefighters emergency personnel, unarmed mental health responders and civilian staff — and makes “needed investments” in pedestrian, traffic safety and city infrastructure. The vote instructed the chief legislative analyst’s office to draft an ordinance formally adopting the budget, an ordinance the council will look to adopt next week. Bass will still need to sign the new version of the budget before it becomes official. Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez was the lone “no” vote and said the budget “fell far short” of meeting the needs of Angelenos. “I don’t believe that the proposal put forward today is responsible budgeting, and I will not go back to my constituents and tell them that $13 billion doesn’t include enough money to deliver the basic municipal services that they deserve and demand,” Hernandez said.
Bass said the council’s action Thursday would “make Los Angeles more livable for all.” “It will allow us to confront the emergency of homelessness with the urgency we need and make innovative investments in bold new methods to make our neighborhoods safer,” Bass said in a statement. Among the significant items in the budget are those addressing the homelessness emergency including $250 million for the mayor’s Inside Safe program, with $65.7 million allocated initially and $184.3 million to be released as the funds are expended. Once the Inside Safe account drops below $25 million, the account would be automatically replenished up to $50 million. The plan provides the City Council with the ability to halt the replenishment of the Inside Safe account, for example, if they wanted more information about how the funds are being expended or details of ongoing operations. Bass’ office would need to provide biweekly progress reports starting June 1, as well. Additional funds provide for the acquisition of interim
Los Angeles City Hall stands in the foreground, as the downtown skyline looms in the distance. | Photo courtesy of RDNE Stock project/Pexels (CC0)
and permanent housing; for substance use disorder treatment beds, funded with revenue received from an opioid settlement. Key areas of the budget for Inside Safe will allocate $110 million to pay for motel and other interim housing costs; $47 million to acquire motels and hotels to reduce future program costs; $10 million set aside for staff; $62 million for ongoing services such as case management, food, residential staff and support services; and $21 million for the development of transition and permanent housing and the establishment of a 12-month
rental assistance program. The city also expects to generate $672 million from Measure ULA, known by some as the “mansion tax,” which enacted a 4% tax on properties sold for more than $5 million and a 5.5% tax on properties sold for more than $10 million and went into effect April 1. However, ongoing litigation has caused some concerns in Bass’ office about the future of that measure. The $150 million from Measure ULA will be used to support the city’s efforts to address homelessness. The budget also seeks to restore LAPD staffing to 9,500
officers, at the minimum, with two full classes of recruits in training and additional funding to return retired police officers to active duty for 12 months, hire additional civilian personnel and increase staffing for 911 dispatch services. Direct funding for the LAPD decreased by about $22 million compared to last year, as council members pointed to salary savings for that decrease. About $1 million is slated to expedite the application See City budget Page 02
Bass joins other mayors to lobby Newsom, legislators for more homeless funding By City News Service
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os Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined the California Big City Mayors for meetings with Gov. Gavin Newsom and key legislators Wednesday to seek more homeless funding for the state’s Homekey program and mental health and substance abuse beds. “This is the number one crisis we are facing in California,” Bass said during a news conference in Sacramento. “The only way we will solve
it is by acting together with locked arms, as we say in Los Angeles, to bring folks inside for good.” Bass said no mayor can “work alone” to face the homelessness crisis, and that’s why recent state investments and partnerships have been so critical. “While this year’s state budget must be difficult, the need for housing interventions and services must remain a top priority,” Bass
said. “We need to ensure additional funding in this budget to make an even bigger impact.” The California Big City Mayors, a coalition of mayors of the state’s 13 most populous cities, issued a letter to Newsom and state legislators last Thursday, one day before he released a revised budget proposal for the 2023-24 fiscal year. In the letter, the coalition insisted the homeless
crisis continues to be its No. 1 priority, and the need to address homelessness should be reflected through the state’s budget. “For this reason, we respectfully request — as our top budget priority — continuing and sustaining HHAP (Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention) funding with direct allocations for big cities, with a minimum allocation of $2 billion per year in FY 23-24, 24-25 and 25-26 for
a total of $6 billion,” the letter read. As Newsom’s administration and legislators develop policy to address homelessness, the coalition proposed a framework to aid in that effort, including flexibility in the use of state funding; permanent funding; focused goals; release of HHAP bonus funding; prioritizing increased bed capacity; quicker disbursement of funding; land use waivers;
stabilizing annual allocations; and lastly, focusing funding where need is greatest. In addition, the coalition requested $1.5 billion for Homekey to ensure all applications in round three are funded. Newsom released his “May Revise” Friday in which he announced a $32 billion deficit in the state’s proposed See Homelessness Page 28