(The Center Square) – Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a nearly $15 billion budget Thursday.
The amount is an increase of $750 million – 5.3% – from the previous fiscal year’s adopted budget.
The 2026-27 budget calls for, among other things, $4.34 million for public works/sanitation and $6.65 million for public works/street services. And $4.28 million will go toward sidewalk repairs, $5.32 million to parking enforcement and traffic control, and $2.80 million for homelessness and community programs.
Seated in front of city workers and City Council members, including Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Katy Yaroslavsky, Eunisses Hernandez and Tim McOsker, Bass signed the budget around 9 a.m. local time.
Bass thanked them all for their support.
“As mayor, my focus has been to change the direction of LA by reversing longstanding trends on homelessness, housing, public safety, and investment in basic city services,” Bass said at the press conference. “For years and years, homelessness only went up, LA under-built housing, our police department shrank, and our infrastructure crumbled.”
According to Bass, her administration is turning those situations around.
“Today street homelessness is down almost 18%,” said Bass, a Democrat and former congresswoman who is running for reelection as mayor in the June 2 primary. “(That’s) two years in a row, a historic decline.”
Bass also said LA is building more housing, hiring more officers and investing in prevention, while crime is down.
“Homicides are at a 60-year low, and we just announced our plan for 60,000 streetlights to wipe out the decade-long backlog,” said Bass. “This is what the budget I’m signing today is organized around, continuing to change LA by lowering homelessness, building more housing, hiring officers to protect our streets, repairing our streets, lighting them and keeping them clean.”
To balance the budget, the Mayor’s Office made $14.33 million in reductions such as Animal Services (a cut of $1 million), Information Technology (a cut of $.092 million), and Personnel (a cut of $1 million). Reductions were also made across departments such as City Planning (a reduction of $.020 million), General Services (a cut of $0.59 million), and the City Clerk (a reduction of $0.05 million).
Meanwhile, the budget maintains a $489.4 million Reserve Fund that will be split between Emergency Reserve and a Contingency Reserve.
Bass introduced the budget in April and announced that the balanced budget predicts increased revenues from property, business, sales and utility taxes. The budget was approved by the City Council on May 21 after a 12-1 vote.
Councilmember Traci Park was the lone opposing vote.
The Center Square reached out to Park, Harris-Dawson, Yerslowski and Hernandez for comment but did not receive a response.
McOsker answered The Center Square’s questions by email.
“In a year defined by significant fiscal challenges, this budget is centered on the City’s core responsibilities, including sidewalks, streets, curbs, public safety, homelessness response, and basic city services,” the City Council member said.
“Throughout this process, we remained committed to funding our values, protecting core services, supporting our workforce, and putting Los Angeles on stronger financial footing for the future,” McOsker told The Center Square on Thursday afternoon. “I want to thank Mayor Bass for putting together a strong proposed budget, as well as my colleagues on the Budget and Finance Committee for their tireless work throughout this process to deliver a responsible budget for the people of Los Angeles.”
Meanwhile, Bass said the city will keep moving forward.
“The budget increases street sweeping on major corridors and dedicates illegal dumping enforcement to problem areas throughout the city,” said Bass. “It also funds the repair of over 700 lane miles of our city streets.”
That, said Bass, is what Angelenos expect and deserve.
Still, Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Los Angeles-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is not sold on the budget.
In April, 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.”
During the press conference, Bass did not mention specific spending figures for the police and fire departments. The Center Square looked at the budget, which shows allocations of $3.53 billion for the Police Department and $939.5 million for the Los Angeles City Fire Department.
Last year, the fire department faced the challenge of responding to the devastating Palisades Fire.
The fiscal year begins July 1.
