The Los Angeles City Council signed off on a $15 billion budget for 2026-27 on Thursday, preserving Mayor Karen Bass’ police hiring plan while socking away more money for potential emergencies.
The council voted 12-1 to approve Bass’s spending plan, which called for the hiring of 510 Los Angeles Police Department officers to offset resignations and retirements. By June 2027, the department is expected to have 8,555 officers, down from about 10,000 in 2020.
Councilmember Traci Park cast the lone opposing vote, saying the budget shortchanges the Fire Department and cuts the number of homeless encampment cleanups in her district, which stretches from Los Angeles International Airport north to Pacific Palisades.
“This budget asks Angelenos to accept slower emergency response, dirtier beaches and more failed homelessness spending — all while City Hall continues to under-invest in the basic services people count on to keep them safe,” said Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades, where thousands of homes were destroyed in the 2025 Palisades fire.
The mayor and the council plan to take a second look at firefighter staffing after the Nov. 3 election, when voters take up a sales tax hike to pay for fire department operations.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez defended the spending plan, saying it provides much needed funds for sidewalk repairs, tree trimming, unarmed crisis response teams and the “safe parking” program, which sets aside spaces and services for homeless people living in their vehicles.
“We are investing in solarizing street lights so entire neighborhoods are not left in the dark,” she said.
Thursday’s flurry of budget votes offered a sharp contrast from last year’s deliberations, when council members scrambled to eliminate a $1 billion shortfall while minimizing cuts to the city workforce.
Thsi time around, council members put more money into the city’s reserves, partly in an attempt to secure better borrowing terms for the upgrade of the Convention Center.
City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the powerful budget committee, said lenders and bond rating agencies will be watching closely as the city prepares to issue $1.8 billion in bonds for that project. Even small differences in the interest rate could translate into tens of millions of dollars in savings, she said.
“This budget sends a signal that the city of Los Angeles is taking our fiscal responsibilities and our future seriously,” Yaroslavsky said.
The council already received one piece of good news earlier this week, with business leaders promising to withdraw their ballot proposal to repeal the gross receipts tax. That measure, if approved, would have deprived the city of an average of $860 million per year over five years, spurring deep cuts to city services.
Bass proposed a hold-the-line budget last month, one that mostly avoided new investments or cuts. The plan called for staffing to remain the roughly same at the police and fire departments, while ramping up the installation of “curb cuts” — wheelchair ramps on sidewalks at intersections.
The budget offers a slow ramp-up of the police hiring plan, allowing about 25 recruits per Police Academy class during the first part of the fiscal year and up to 50 recruits per class during the second half of the fiscal year.
Council members also gave a small increase to the budget of Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness. And they allocated $1.5 million for Represent LA, which provides legal representation to residents who are facing deportation or other immigration proceedings.
The council, at the request of Councilmemer Hugo Soto-Martínez, asked city budget analysts to produce a report on whether the program can be increased to $2.5 million in the coming months.
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