Ouch. No, we better make that OUCH!

I’m talking about the Fiscal Year 2027 budget for Long Beach, of course. The proposed budget was released last week, and was filled with service cuts to make the thing balance – which is required by law (actually, the City Charter, which is pretty much the same thing).

As you know, I am a city budget nerd. I actually enjoy trying to decipher the complex spending plan, and explaining it to readers.

It’s been a few years since it was my responsibility to do that in detail for you, dear reader, but I can’t stop myself from talking about this year’s budget. That’s because for the first time in several years, there are significant cuts that will impact us all.

It’s far from the only time Long Beach has seen service cuts. The last biggy was during the Great Recession – 2008-2013. The dearly departed Bob Foster was mayor during most of that period, and the annual cuts back then were downright depressing.

So let’s talk about this year instead.

It’s my aim to explain without using government gobbledegook, but please forgive me in advance if I forget to explain a term. I’ve been infected with the jargon, and no one has found a cure.

To start, you need to know we are talking primarily about something called the general fund. That’s the portion of the city’s budget that isn’t restricted to specific uses – the Harbor Fund has to be spent at the Port of Long Beach, for example. The general fund pays for services you see and expect, like cops, libraries and parks.

Fun fact: The Port of Long Beach budget is bigger than the entire general fund for the city. The Harbor Commission has already approved a $1.05 billion spending plan for FY 2027, while the City Council will spend the next month or so debating how to split up a general fund of $738.6 million.

If you’ve ever actually done a household budget for a year (I did once and vowed to never do it again), you know that the trouble comes when your income doesn’t cover your expenses. That’s because either a.) your income decreases or b.) your expenses increase. When both happen at the same time, that’s Trouble with a capital T.

And that’s what has happened to Long Beach. It’s going to take some fancy footwork to cover the gap we call the deficit in the current fiscal year, and the estimated shortfall in 2027 is a whopping $58.2 million – that’s a 7.88% reduction, for you math geeks.

Why did this happen? First, the city’s income (primarily taxes of different types) has slowed. A couple of other major sources of money – federal grants and oil profits – have plummeted as well.

Second, expenses are increasing, just like they are for you. One example is the new contracts for police officers and firefighters. I’m all for paying these heroes as much as we can, but those new contracts will cost an additional $38.3 million over the next three years.

You know I’m loath to criticize the current federal administration, but the plain fact is it doesn’t like California, where Long Beach lives. The cuts of federal funding could add up to $300 million or more, with a ton of that coming out of the Health Department.

I should point out that our fair city has been and continues to be better off than many California municipalities. It looks like Los Angeles is going to close the year with an $800 million deficit, for example.

But we care about us, right?

Here are a few of the cuts Long Beach’s City Council will grapple with. 1. Eliminating Fire Engine 14 (keeping the ambulance), with other stations covering. 2. Eliminating 17 police positions that are currently vacant, and another 13 Quality of Life officers. 3. Homeless outreach services cut in half. 4. Shelter and housing vouchers virtually eliminated by the end of the year.

One of the cool things about the Long Beach budget process is that it gives the mayor a chance to look like a hero with his (or her) recommendations changing the city manager’s proposed budget. That worked really well this year, because some significant revenue increases occurred between staff’s work and giving it to the mayor. For example, the city saves $1.5 million because we don’t have to have a municipal election in November – everyone won outright in the primary. And the countywide Measure ER passed, adding sales tax revenue to backfill some of the public health programs being cut. There are other plusses as well.

So Mayor Rex Richardson was able to save one fire engine (12 firefighters), eight cops, the Office of Equity, 12 folks in sections of the Health Department and more.

There will be a series of public meetings, budget presentations, etc. over the next month – the council has to pass a balanced budget by Sept. 15. Be prepared to hear a lot of red herring arguments – City Manager Tom Modica calls them LBC Mythbusters in his budget presentation. The most common will be “if you didn’t build that $20 million amphitheater, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” But the money spent on the amphitheater came from a fund (the Tidelands Fund) restricted for use in a particular area, and it couldn’t have been used to pay for citywide stuff. (And officials say it will make money. Really, it will.)

Still, you are welcome, even expected, to fight for your own priorities through the budget process. It is your community, your money at stake.

That’s why I am a budget nerd.