Good morning and welcome to Records LA – City Hall newsletter. It’s Rebecca Ellis, and with the support of her colleague David Zanizer, we’ll be providing city and county government updates.

‘This is the season of financial troubles.

Lasity officials cannot afford to raise the salaries they agreed to. last year. Legal payments are rising sharply. The city’s infrastructure suffered hundreds of millions of people from the Palisade fire.

LA County isn’t getting much better. Officials say it is being added at a wildfire cost of around $2 billion. They reached $4 billion Reconciliation of sexual abuse – The largest in US history. The Trump administration continues to threaten to cut federal funds.

So why are cities alone in financial crisis?

“We don’t write checks that cannot be cashed,” the LA County supervisor said. Kathryn Burger.

This week, county It has been announced The proposed $48 billion budget for the next fiscal year was summed up in the fact that everyone agreed to be “unprecedented” financial pressure.

Still, the announcement was not all fate and darkness. The county was not expecting a layoff. This year’s cuts amount to just $89 million. And the budget was balanced.

Compared to the city, it It has been reported The projected budget shortage was a billion-dollar shy, “nearly inevitable” layoffs, with the announcement being adjacent Jolie.

The city’s fiscal convention was a “wake-up call,” Burger said. Berger said part of the county’s success comes from the fact that unlike the city, she and her colleagues have not agreed to a dramatic salary increase for employees.

“And then, we haven’t fired employees as a result of not planning our financial situation for years,” Berger said.

Willingness to draw a line can have other effects.

On Thursday, SEIU Local 721, which represents 55,000 county employees, announced that it is planning a strike at the end of the month as the county is slow to negotiate contracts, according to the union.

“We’ve been stuck at zero for over six months,” Unionhead said. David Green. “It’s not just an offer. It’s urging people to quit their jobs.”

Due to the choppy financial water, the county has also leaned heavily towards a luxury rainy day fund, which can be drained to pay for the settlement of mammoth sexual abuse. The fund has not been mentioned in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

“It’s like the Holy Grail,” the CEO said. Fesia Davenport A billion dollar pot.

In contrast, the city repeatedly slammed its preparations. This was hovering over 3% earlier this year.

Mayor of LA Karen Basesaid in an interview that the city’s financial issues are more than employee pay. She said the biggest factors behind the budget crisis are economic activity, including lower than expected tax revenues, and the rising costs of legal settlements and juju awards.

“If all we had was a rise in labor costs, we didn’t consider layoffs or drastic cuts,” she said.

Longtime employees say penny pinch has fallen into the county government’s bloodstream since mostly bankrupted in 1995. The health system was on the verge of collapse due to sloppy financial plans by county leaders.

In the end, the former president Bill Clinton He saved the county.

“That was embarrassing,” the former manager said. Zev Yaroslavskyhelped pilot the county from the red. “This was like our Great Repression. We don’t want to be put in this position again.”

Still, all careful planning by the county’s financial mind may be pointless.

Two days after Davenport announced her spending plans, news Broken The Trump administration had planned to cut $40 billion from the federal Department of Health and Human Services and send destructive balls to the county public health department.

“To be honest, I think every department was just shocked,” the county director of public health said. Barbara Fellercalled the government’s cuts “ignorance.”

The county health department has earned around $1 billion (two-thirds of the total budget) from federal grants that fund everything from lead poisoning to sexually transmitted diseases.

Under the proposed federal cuts, the county department will lose about $300 million and around 500 employees will destroy preventive work, Feller said.

“You can really see the administration’s proposal, as we know today, to almost destroy local public health,” Feller said. “I can’t absorb that level of investment. I can’t find the value of $300 million worth of efficiency.”

The state of play

– Costs keep coming: The county has set an estimated cost of a January wildfire to nearly $2 billion. This includes $1 billion in lost revenue and an additional $1 billion to cover costs such as soil testing and debris removal.

– Warning failure: Western Altadena’s first evacuation order did not come until dispatchers received at least 14 fire reports in the area, according to 911 logs obtained by The Times. Almost all of the deaths caused by the fire occurred in Western Altadena.

– Voting crash: Bass is less popular than she was a year ago, New research By UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. The decline in popularity was probably linked to handling of wildfires in January.

– Shutdown time: A Los Angeles County judge said Friday that he plans to close the juvenile hall in Los Padrino in Downey, months after the state’s supervisory agency determined it was “inappropriate” to house young people. The probation department must plan a relocation until early May, with around 270 young people in detention.

– No vision: City officials have released an enthusiastic and anticipated audit of Vision Zero, a program aimed at eliminating deaths from LA traffic accidents and why it failed. Factors include poor coordination and a lack of political will from city leaders, the document said.

-Resume the question: The new head of Los Angeles County is leaving the Affordable Housing Solutions Agency. Ryan JohnsonThe departure of the film is in concerns about his background and how closely he was vetted before taking the gig.

– Takeover Takedown: LA County has taken the first step to dramatically increase the penalty for those taking part in street takeovers. The county wants to double the misdemeanor fine from $500 to $1,000.

– See red: The Los Angeles chapter of American Democrat Socialists held its annual conference last weekend, with over 200 members voting for their priorities for next year. The group will focus on responding to threats from the Trump administration, and at the local level, it will focus on tenant rights issues. Councillor eunisses hernandez He was present.

– Working overtime: The County Sheriff’s Office spent $458 million on overtime last year, the Times found. These expenditures have been driven in part by a decline in the number of agents since Covid-19.

– Soil test: The county is allocating $3 million to help Etonburn area homeowners test their soil and test lead contamination. The funds come after the heavy metal levels were high and then found in the soil of the facility where the house still stands.

Quick Hit

• Where is there a safe place?? The mayor’s signature program to combat the homelessness traveled over 45 people indoors, according to the mayor’s team. Operations carried out in the districts represented by Hernandez also removed 20 RVs, the mayor’s office said.
• At the docket next week:Bass will release her 2025-2026 budget on the same day as her State of the City address. It should be a big day!