Los Angeles is experiencing a full-blown budget crisis. A month ago, the financial gap was estimated at just shy of $1 billion, delivering another headache for Mayor Karen Bass — as well as the public, which relies on city government to repave streets, fix sidewalks, maintain parks, collect trash and pay police officers and firefighters, among many services.
On Monday, Bass will release her proposed spending plan for 2025-26, spelling out her strategy for erasing the budget shortfall — one that will require her to cut the size of the workforce and carve into city services.
With that in mind, here are some things to watch out for:
How many city workers will be targeted for layoffs?
City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, the top municipal budget analyst, warned a few weeks ago that layoffs would be “nearly inevitable.” But how many will actually show up in the mayor’s proposed budget?
A few weeks ago, Szabo’s office sent city departments a list of positions being considered for layoffs. Altogether, those positions exceeded 3,500. On Saturday, Bass told The Times that her budget team had shaved the number to fewer than 2,000.
Bass wouldn’t get more precise, other than to say it had been hovering above 1,500 a few days earlier.
On multiple occasions, Bass has said she’s searching for alternatives to layoffs — most significantly, state financial relief.
“I’m going to have to propose layoffs,” Bass said Friday at an event hosted by Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen, OK? I don’t. I don’t. But I have to propose that, because by law the budget has to come out on Monday, by April 21, under the City Charter.
“I believe there are some solutions, like from the state, that will help us so that we don’t have to do layoffs ultimately,” she added.
The City Council has until the end of May to make changes to mayor’s budget and then approve it. By then, city officials should have a clearer idea of whether Gov. Gavin Newsom will come to the rescue.
Where will Bass make her cuts?
One thing we know for sure: Bass will not be seeking reductions to the Fire Department. She said so last week while visiting Pacific Palisades, which was ravaged by fire at the start of the year.
The city’s firefighter union has long argued that the department is woefully underfunded. That message grew louder after the January disaster.
So where else could Bass make cuts? The Police Department is one likely target, due to its enormous size when compared with most other city agencies.
The mayor’s budget team could slow the hiring of new police officers, allowing sworn staffing to fall below the 8,733 budgeted for the current fiscal year, down from about 10,000 five years ago. Such a move might be politically easier right now, since homicides and shootings are both down by double digits.
Bass also could reduce the number of non-sworn employees at the LAPD, such as clerical staff.
Meanwhile, some at City Hall have heard rumblings about major cuts to the planning department, which processes development applications and updates zoning plans, as well as the troubled Animal Services Department. Many other agencies could also face deep cuts.
What will happen to Inside Safe?
The moment she took office, Bass made the fight against homelessness a top priority. A huge part of that effort is Inside Safe, which moves people off the streets and into interim and permanent housing.
The program has been expensive, requiring leases with dozens of hotels and motels. Two years in, some city councilmembers have voiced concerns about its cost.
“We cannot afford to do everything via hotels and motels. We have to have other options,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who serves on the council’s budget committee.
Bass told The Times last week that she has no intention of scaling back her signature initiative. She is looking to tap new funding sources, such as Measure A, the half-cent sales tax approved by voters last year to fund homeless services.
“I’m going to keep housing people. I don’t care what it takes,” Bass said at Friday’s Black Lives Matter event. “I’m going to keep doing that because I know that four people tomorrow morning are not going to wake up. They’re going to die on the street, and more than likely they look like you.”
What about Kenneth Mejia?
Since taking office in 2022, City Controller Kenneth Mejia has been among the most outspoken critics of spending decisions at City Hall. Last year, he repeatedly voiced alarm over Bass’ decision to eliminate more than 1,700 vacant positions, saying it would hurt city services.
Will Mejia’s megaphone grow even louder now that actual layoffs are on the table? And will his office be targeted with a new round of cuts?
Bass pushed last year for the elimination of 27 vacant positions in Mejia’s office. Ultimately, nine of those posts were kept on the books but with no money to pay for them, according to Mejia spokesperson Diana Chang.
“Without funding for them, we can’t hire or fill them,” Chang said in an email. “It’s unlikely that these positions will get filled this fiscal year.”
Some Mejia supporters have talked him up as a potential challenger to Bass in June 2026. Mejia said he’s not interested right now and is raising money instead for his own reelection.
One thing is for sure: If the mayor proposes new reductions to the controller’s office, Mejia will make sure the public knows about it.
Will the mayor shut down departments?
Every time the city faces budget troubles, smaller departments are placed on the chopping block, with the mayor or council members looking to merge them with bigger agencies.
This time around, agencies that oversee youth development programs, job training and services for senior citizens among the most vulnerable. The mayor could seek to combine any one of them with a larger department.
Bass could also take a page from her predecessors and seek to consolidate some larger agencies.
In 2013, his final year in office, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pushed for a merger of the Department of Building and Safety and the Department of City Planning, which he saw as a way of cutting red tape for real estate developers.
That effort was opposed by Eric Garcetti, who replaced Villaraigosa a few months later. The merger also became a major plot point in the federal racketeering and bribery prosecution of Raymond Chan, the onetime head of the Department of Building and Safety.
Chan, whose job was put in jeopardy by the merger, was accused of arranging a $600,000 bribe to then-Councilmember Jose Huizar in exchange for Huizar’s work opposing the merger. In October, Chan was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Chan, 68, is an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution on Terminal Island, according to the Board of Prisons, with his release scheduled for 2035.
See? Budgets can be interesting!
