Bunchy Carter
I'll Take The Money Over The Honey
Mayor Bass signs $13 billion budget for the City Los Angeles
Mayor Karen Bass signed the city's revised $13 billion budget for fiscal year 2023-24, following the City Council's vote earlier this week to approve its amended version of her originally proposed spending plan.
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Mayor Karen Bass signed the city's revised $13 billion budget for fiscal year 2023-24, following the City Council's vote earlier this week to approve its amended version of her originally proposed spending plan.
After weeks of deliberations, hours of public comment and final revisions, the council voted 13-1 to approve its amended version of the mayor's budget.
The final version includes an unprecedented $1.3 billion to address housing and homelessness and about $3.2 billion for the Los Angeles Police Department. "Wednesday's vote by the council will allow our city to scale the strategies that my office has already begun to implement to confront the emergency of homelessness with the urgency we need, boldly advance new methods to make our neighborhoods safer and strengthen our city's infrastructure to continue combating climate change and improving city services," Bass said in a statement. She thanked Council President Paul Krekorian and City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, chair of the council's Budget, Finance and Innovation Committee, and the rest of the council for "locking arms" with her.
The budget will take effect July 1. Krekorian said in a statement that the council "built on the broad outline of the mayor's proposed budget" with amendments to ensure "transparency and accountability" in the city's spending. The 2023-24 budget tops $13 billion for the first time, a $1.31 billion, or 11% increase, form the prior fiscal year and includes $566 million in a reserve fund. Councilwoman Eunissess Hernandez was the lone "no" vote.
She said while there are some "important investments" in the budget, it "fell far short" of meeting the needs of Angelenos. "We talked over and over about how we can uplift and fund these desperately needed programs and services because we wanted to create something that reflected the needs of a very diverse city," Hernandez told her colleagues the day of the vote.
"I have to say that I'm disappointed with the outcome of this process. When we have a budget that has 25% of our money going to policing, we're not creating a budget that is reflective of our values and the demands that we get every day from our constituents."
