The Long Beach City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to adopt a 2027 budget totaling $4 billion in spending at a deficit of $58.2 million, closing out a marathon session that restored library hours and dozens of positions while raising parking citations and cannabis taxes to pay for them.
The vote capped what Mayor Rex Richardson called “budget adoption day,” a process he said had “improved significantly at every step along the way, moving from departments to the city manager’s proposal to the mayor’s recommendation” since January.
But council members said the final package arrived too late for meaningful review, with the Budget Oversight Committee’s 28 recommendations released only hours before council adoption and after the committee received the mayor’s budget preferences with no time for meaningful review.
“I don’t know how these recommendations come from the BOC when I didn’t even see them until today,” Councilwoman Cindy Allen said, adding she would not “rubber stamp a $4 billion budget when I’ve only had minutes to review”.
Councilwoman Kristina Duggan, who cast the second “no” vote, echoed Allen’s concern, saying the full council had “only part of a day to review significant changes before being asked to adopt the budget tonight.”
The approved budget restores about 70 positions that had been proposed for elimination, including fire engine and patrol positions, and includes $1 million for the Long Beach Justice Fund. It also preserves Monday hours at five branch libraries by restoring $1,275,575 and 11 full-time positions in the Library Arts and Culture Department.
To fund those restorations, the council approved raising specific parking citations to $100, projected to generate $1.5 million, and increasing street sweeping citations from $75 to $80 for an estimated $700,000. The budget also repeals a prior 1% tax reduction for adult-use cannabis retailers, raising the rate from 7% to 8% and setting the cultivator rate at $15 per square foot, estimated to bring in $1,154,304.
Allen and Duggan opposed the parking fee increases on equity grounds.
“Renters are more likely to depend on street parking, while homeowners have access to garages and driveways in many cases,” Duggan said. “At the same time, we are approving new apartment projects with less than one parking space per unit, and in some cases, even less for affordable housing. Housing.”
A substitute motion to remove the parking citation increase failed, as did a separate motion to delay the budget hearing by a week.
The council also approved a $1,490,000 grant from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for the city’s Community Crisis Response Team, a program that dispatches mental health responders instead of police to nonviolent crises.
Public speakers urged expanding the team beyond its current five staff members, who operate from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
According to a Richardson in a Facebook post, the budget also preserves funding for the city’s Police Academy Class 101 and “Quality of Life teams” while preventing “disruptive fire engine brownouts citywide” and preserving critical public health services.” The budget also strengthens traffic safety and maintains 90-minute free parking in downtown garages.
“We’re also strengthening our financial foundation by replenishing reserves, studying sustainable funding models for fire services, and positioning Long Beach for our first structural surplus since before the pandemic,” Richardson posted.
The budget sets aside $10 million to begin replenishing city reserves, which Richardson said positions the city to “finally address the structural deficit” inherited from the pandemic. The council also approved a $28,726,936 transfer from the Harbor Fund Group to the Tidelands Operations Fund Group and a $7,299,655 budget for the Long Beach Community Investment Company, which Richardson described as housing money.
During a special City Council meeting Aug. 4, City Manager Tom Modica framed the proposed budget as containing necessary cuts after five years without reductions, telling the council city management would “recommend fully solving that deficit this year and also rebuilding our reserves at the same time,” he said.
Inflationary cost increases and the loss of about $300 million in support from the federal government, in addition to five years with no reductions, are the main reasons for the deficit, according to Modica.
More information is on the city’s budget web portal, longbeach.gov/finance/city-budget-and-finances/budget/budget-information.
The AI platform Civilio assisted this report.
