Spending cuts to help offset “extraordinary budgetary pressures” will highlight Los Angeles County’s 2025-26 budget that the Board of Supervisors is set to consider, the county CEO’s office announced Monday.
CEO Fesia Davenport’s $47.9 billion recommended budget, which she will officially deliver to the board Tuesday, includes over $1 billion in costs related to the deadly January wildfires that devastated communities in Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre.
The budget also reflects “rapidly mounting financial challenges,” such as the possible loss of hundreds of millions of dollars or more in federal funding and the tentative $4 billion settlement of thousands of childhood sexual assault claims brought under Assembly Bill 218, according to the CEO’s office. Compounding the financial pressure slower property tax revenue growth partially because of a 41% decline in home sales since 2021 amid higher interest rates.
Such pressures have prompted county departments to make 3% cuts in their budgets, targeting a total of $88.9 million and “eliminating 310 vacancies and more than $50 million in savings from cutting supplies, delaying equipment purchases and reducing the scope of some programs,” officials said.
No layoffs of county workers were expected, but the Recommended Budget, which is the first phase in the county’s annual budget process, reflects “a high degree of caution, restraint and uncertainty” as fiscal pressures cascade, officials said.
“We are in uncharted territory with these simultaneous pressures on our budget,” Davenport said in a statement. “Any of these alone would be daunting, but taken together these challenges — the wildfires, the AB 218 settlement, the threat of deep cuts in federal funding — are cause for great concern.”
Despite the challenges and uncertainty, the budget is balanced, with officials keen on sustaining “the county’s essential safety net responsibilities” and supervisors’ funding priorities.
The recommended budget reflects Measure A’s voter-approved half-cent sales tax that replaced Measure H, which has already started generating enhanced funding into the region and its cities to address homelessness.
Measure A revenue totaling $1.1 billion in the proposed budget will go to the contractors who provide services to address homelessness, with $382.8 million for the LA County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, $32.1 million to the county Development Authority, $96.3 million to cities via the Local Solutions Fund and over $500 million for the county’s own homelessness services.
Davenport highlighted these other funding recommendations:
- $287.7 million for Care First and Community Investment — an ongoing commitment to dedicate “10% of locally generated unrestricted revenues” each year to support the board’s “Care First, Jails Last” plan. Total CFCI funding available for investment in communities and alternatives to incarceration is $571.6 million, including unspent funds from prior years.
- $11.9 million to ramp up to Measure G, the voter-approved directive to reshape the county government with an expanded Board of Supervisors, an elected CEO and the creation of an Ethics Commission. “The budget allocates funding for the Governance Reform Task Force that will guide Measure G efforts, and also dedicates ongoing funds to support the operations of the Ethics Commission and the Office of Ethics Compliance when they are established in 2026,” the CEO’s office reported.
- An assortment of other funding allocations for after-hours safety improvements at county parks, the Youth@Work program, expanding the Mental Health Department’s Alternative Crisis Response effort and assistance to victims of Electronic Benefits Transfer fraud. Other highlights are linked below.
Additional budget highlights are available on the county CEO’s website.
The nearly $48 billion proposed budget also calls for adding 14 new positions for a total of 117,100 county employees.
Additional information on the budget process is also on the CEO’s website.
