Los Angeles was forced to slash funding at a major scale for its fire department after Mayor Karen Bass approved a number of lucrative contracts for city workers, as revealed on Saturday by a review of public records. The trouble began early last year when Bass finalized contract negotiations with public sector unions.
In dozens of agreements, civilian employees in the city were given wage hikes of up to 20 to 25 percent over five years, along with additional benefits. These commitments are projected to cost Los Angeles $4.5 billion over the course of the contracts, according to an analysis by the city’s administrative officer, as reported by City Journal.
Major Cuts by Bass Putting City at Risk
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Adding to the financial strain, unexpected payouts from personal injury lawsuit judgments against the city pushed Los Angeles close to a financial breaking point.
“Los Angeles is teetering on the edge of a fiscal emergency, with its finances in “dire” condition and no money to cover unplanned expenses after a series of lawsuit payouts blew a hole in the city’s already-tight budget,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in an editorial in October 2024, blasting Bass for the “self-inflicted” wound.
The report warned that the city’s rainy day reserve fund, mandated to be 10% of the $8 billion general fund budget, was at risk of falling below 2.75%. Such a decline would prompt the declaration of a fiscal emergency.
This financial predicament compelled Mayor Bass and the city council to reduce Los Angeles’s 2024-25 budget to $12.9 billion, a decrease from the previous year’s $13.1 billion.
City at Risk
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This decision led to budget reductions in 20 different sectors, including a $17.6 million decrease in funding for the fire department.
“Predictions that city services will be impossible to deliver … are simply false,” Zach Seidl, the deputy mayor of communications, confidently stated last year. However, this assertion has not stood the test of time.
This week, the downsized Los Angeles Fire Department struggled to contain the devastating fires that tore through the Palisades and several other neighborhoods across the city. The blazes have caused over $100 billion in damages and claimed the lives of at least five people so far.
“Mayor Bass’s tenure is another unfortunate example of the failure of progressive governance in California. Bass has spent much of her mayoral energy negotiating more generous salary contracts for municipal employees rather than focusing on core city needs such as firefighting,” Judge Glock, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute told The Post.
“Although fires can and do start anywhere, the obvious failures of LA’s fire response are in part the result of Mayor Bass’s focus on supporting municipal unions and progressive causes rather than the needs of the city’s citizens.”
