L.A. City Controller Rings Alarm Bell on City Finances
L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia painted a bleak picture of the state of Los Angeles's city budget in a revenue forecast report sent last Friday to the mayor and City Council. His report predicts that the revenue this fiscal year will fall $140 million short of the adopted budget, along with facing an additional $73 million decrease in the next fiscal year. This is coupled with the second year in a row that the City Administrative Officer projects a budget deficit. Combined with the fact that the city is expected to overspend by $300 million, a revenue shortfall leaves the council with a substantial gap to make up.Some of the reasons given for the revenue forecast in the City Controller's report are the new federal administration's extreme approach to tariffs, a continued trend of automation in industries that have been reliable sources of city revenue, and the lasting effects of the fires in January. Council Budget Chair Katy Yaroslavsky says the city faces $100 million in LAFD overtime. The fires also laid bare the unsatisfactory state of the departments' facilities, which the city would urgently need to address by upgrading them. Other councilmembers believe a part of the budget problem can also be attributed to general waste, particularly after an audit released Thursday exposed that a significant amount of the money for homeless services could not be tracked.Yaroslavsky insists that the budget problem is a long-term one — Mejia agrees. 'Our short-term focus on year-to-year balance neglects the need for a multi-year transition to service models that allow the City to live within its means,' writes Kenneth Mejia. 'Any conceivable plan for a sustainable and equitable operating and capital budget must have broad-based support from community, labor, business and other vital stakeholders.'
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