L.A. City Council approves revised budget that saves jobs, hires fewer police officers

On Thursday afternoon, the Los Angeles City Council voted to approve a $14 billion revised city budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, significantly reducing the number of layoffs originally proposed by Mayor Karen Bass. 

The updated budget plan was approved by the City Council in a 12-3 vote, with Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson calling it "the least bad we could do." 

Council members Monica Rodriguez, John Lee and Traci Park voted against the revised spending plan on Thursday, claiming that it takes away from public safety efforts.

Back in April, Bass released her $13.95 billion proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, announcing that layoffs were inevitable. At that time, she called for 1,647 layoffs and the elimination of 1,053 vacant positions. 

The new budget plan saves 1,000 jobs, partly by cutting funding from the Los Angeles Police Department. The council’s plan also called for a reduction in the number of new police officer hires in the next year, from 480 to 240. 

Bass had originally proposed sworn hiring of 480 recruits in 12 classes of 40, but the new spending plan looks to only recruit 240 recruits in six classes of 40, a move that saves $13.31 million.

The announcement is made at a time when the city is facing a budget deficit of approximately $1 billion as a result of a number of factors, including overspending, lower-than-expected tax revenues and other contracted work. 

One of the factors in the upcoming budget deficit is the $320 million in settlements and judgments internal staff harassment, police use of force, injuries and more, all of which the city will have to pay. 

Although settlements and liability payouts have been budgeted for in the past, this year’s allocation exceeds more than three and a half times the amount put aside for such risks. 

After weeks of discussions with city department heads and hearing public comments regarding the proposed budget, the city council’s vote is a step closer to the adopted budget going into effect on July 1st. 

The new spending plan also steers away from allocating additional dollars to create a street medicine team, a new proposed homelessness unit within the Los Angeles Fire Department, one of the city's departments that would see an increase (9%) to its operational 2025-26 budget compared to this year. The $76 million LAFD budget will allow for the hiring of new firefighters and the purchase of new fire trucks. 

To cut back on some layoffs, the new spending plan also moved $10 million away from Inside Safe, Bass’s signature homeless program, which aims to move individuals living in encampments into safe housing and connect them with services. 

Although money was allocated to it in the budget, the proposed budget plan also included the creation of a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight, which will be housed in the Los Angeles Housing Department. The new agency would oversee how programs for the unhoused are working in the city.

In addition, the Department of Animal Services is expected to receive $5 million from the unappropriated balance fund for the restoration of 62 positions and to ensure current service levels will remain the same in the next fiscal year across all six city-operated animal shelters. No animal shelters are expected to close. 

City officials must vote a second time before Mayor Bass considers it. The final budget is expected to be finalized by the end of the month but city officials have until the start of the next fiscal year in July to do so.