The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, launched a proposition budget on Monday that would eliminate a financial gap of almost $ 1 billion by reducing more than 2,700 positions in the city, approximately 1,650 of them through layoffs.
The $ 14 billion spending plan, which covers fiscal year 2025-26, would provide funds for Dozens of new hiring in the fire departmentThree months after Palisades fire destroyed thousands of houses and killed 12 people.
However, many other agencies would face deep cost reductions, with dismissals in 5% of the workforce as the city faces the growing costs of personnel, legal payments and a deceleration in the local economy.
In the Los Angeles Police Department, more than 400 workers would be attacked for layoffs, all of them civilians, cordination to the figures prepared by the city’s budget officials. The number of police officers would continue in their gradual career down, with new hiring that fails to follow the wear and rhythm.
For July 1, 2026, the LAPD would have 8,639 officers, the lowest level since 1995, according to the city’s budgetary officials.
Five years ago, the department had about 10,000 officers. Last week, the department reported That had 8,735.
Under, duration DIRECTORATE OF THE STATE OF THE CITY On Monday, he described the dismissal strategy as “a decision of the last absolute resort.” In the week recently, she and other city officials have a leg lobbying government. Gavin Newsom and the state legislature will provide a relief package that would turn off the majority or all those employment cuts.
The mayor is scheduled to make another trip to Sacramento on Wednesday.
“I think there are some solutions, such as the State, that will help us so that we do not have to do dismissals ultimately,” Bass said last week in an event organized by Black Lives-Los Angeles.
Almost 1,100 of the positions aimed at the elimination by bass are already vacancies, said city budget officials.
The mayor’s expenses plan is addressed to the City Council Budget Committee for several weeks of deliberations. If the counter does not change the course and the financial aid of the State does not materialize, the city would fire some 62 workers in the Department of Animal Services, which has struggled to provide human attention to animals in their shelters.
More than 260 workers in the Department of Transport have been directed to dismissals, according to the city’s budgetary officials. 159 additional layoffs are planned on the sanitation desk, which handles garbage collection and the elimination of bulky items, such as mats and sidewalk sofas. In the street services office, which is repaired on the street, the mayor’s budget recommends 130 layoffs, according to a summary prepared by the city’s budget analysts.
On Monday, a union leader promised to prevent those cuts from happening.
“We are going to fight all the dismissals. Even a dismissal is too much,” said David Green, president of the service employees, International Union 721, which represents more than 10,000 workers in the city.
Green said that his union is gathering a coalition of labor leaders to address Sacramento to express his support for the request for state financial assistance from Bass.
Councilor Eunisses Hernández, who reacts part of the east side, also expressed alarm for planned reductions.
“It has been for 10 years to fix the sidewalk, five years to put an sidewalk with complete disability, one year to fix a lamppost. We cannot afford to reduce the speed of city services,” he said.
Councilor Katy Yaroslavsky, who appeared Monday night at a community meeting on the budget, expressed concern about the proposal to fire the sinks of civil workers in LAPD, qualifying it as “problem.” If these desktop work disappear, police officers will have to collect the additional work, he said.
Yaroslavsky said that he suspects that LAPD’s dismissal proposal is part of a broader strategy to force the city unions to make financial concessions.
“I guess that’s part of that,” he said. “
The city’s work negotiators have already begun to speak with union leaders about the postponement of this year’s increases, which are expected to cost around $ 250 million. Offers have not been announced so far.
The City Council has tasks other steps to address the budget gap in recent weeks, voting to address a Great walk in garbage rates Collected from single -family houses and apartments with up to four units. This increase is expected to generate up to $ 90 million in the next budget year.
The mayor’s expense plan protects some central services. Hours in libraries and recreation centers will be maintained, according to the mayor’s budget team.
Szabo, the main municipal budget analyst, said the expenses plan would provide the Fire Department with money to hire 227 additional employees, approximately half of them firefighters. As part of that expansion, the department would create a new program to address the lack of housing, one that includes street medicine equipment.
Bass’s budget requires the city to combine several narrower agencies in a single entity. According to its proposal, the Department of Aging, the Department of Youth Development and the Department of Economic Development and the Labor Force would merged into the Community and Investment Department.
The city would also close the citizen commissions that focus on health, innovation and climate change.
