(The Center Square) – Critics are sharing their two cents about the $14.85 million budget from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
As previously reported by The Center Square, the balanced budget predicts increased revenue from property, business, sales and utility taxes. It also talks about greater efficiency in city services.
“I will absolutely not go back to the broken systems of the past,” Bass said Monday at a press conference.
But later, one expert expressed doubts about revenues, and another noted the city is still below its 2020 level for its number of police.
Bass, who’s a Democrat, said she remains focused on reducing homelessness, building more housing, investing in city services and hiring more police officers.
“That is what the budget I’m releasing today is organized around: continuing to change LA, and move it forward,” said Bass.
Bass – who made similar comments in a video for her State of the City address – also promised street and sidewalk repairs and new street lights.
Still, Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Los Angeles-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is not sold on the budget.
At first glance, Shelley said the mayor is assuming “strong revenue growth,” an indication that this budget may be relying on rosy projections.
“This has been an issue in the past,” Shelley told The Center Square. “The city has struggled with deficits due to overspending and overestimating revenue.”
Pointing to the mayor’s budget summary as saying that “strong revenue growth undergirds this budget and reflects better confidence in our city and our collective work to bolster our local economy,” Shelley said that optimism does not seem to be based on anything except wishfulness.
“Also, the mayor assumes that both the proposed 120% increase in the streetlight assessment and the Sales Tax Measure for the Los Angeles Fire Department will be approved,” Shelley told The Center Square. “That in itself is a ‘rosy projection.’ “
The streetlight assessment ballots went out to property owners this week and will be tallied on June 2.
Meanwhile, the Sales Tax Measure is an initiative petition for a tax increase of 0.5% that Shelley said the firefighters’ union is circulating for signatures.
“As of today, they have not yet filed those signed petitions with the city,” said Shelley. “It would be on the November ballot if they qualify it in time, but taxpayers have to ask, ‘What is in the city budget that’s a higher priority than fully funding the fire department? Why is a tax increase needed at all?’ “
Meanwhile, comments from Bass about police officers caught the attention of Steve Smith, senior fellow in Urban Studies for the Pasadena-based Pacific Research Institute.
“Mayor Bass has preserved the police budget, limiting cuts to civilian staff, and has committed to hiring 510 officers,” Smith told The Center Square on Tuesday. “That should maintain their staffing at about 8,500, which is still 1,500 below 2020 levels.”
Based on public indexes, Smith said all categories of reported violent and property crime have dropped, but crime clearances remain low.
That’s a “statewide trend that appears to be based on the post-George Floyd era” when large numbers of senior officers retired, Smith said.
While positions may have been filled, the new officers may have less experience, and Smith said it will take years to recover all of that collective institutional knowledge.
“Mayor Bass should give some of the credit to LA County’s new District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who has reversed the failed prosecutorial policies of George Gascon and is holding criminals accountable,” said Smith. “Los Angeles is once again sending DAs [district attorneys] to oppose violent criminal releases from CDCR [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] at lifer and parole hearings …” Smith said Gascon had stopped sending his department’s attorneys to the hearings.
The budget from Mayor Bass follows voter initiatives such as Proposition 36 in 2024 and Proposition 47 in 2014.
Prop. 36 called for increased penalties for certain drug and theft crimes. It reversed some of the effects of Prop. 47, which recategorized some nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. Prop. 36 turned certain theft and drug crimes into felonies.
Bass took no position on Prop. 36, but supported Prop. 47.
The mayor’s budget will now go to the Los Angeles City Council for consideration.
