Ouch. No, we better make that OUCH!<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 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 \u2013 which is required by law (actually, the City Charter, which is pretty much the same thing).<\/p>\n
As you know, I am a city budget nerd. I actually enjoy trying to decipher the complex spending plan, and explaining it to readers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a few years since it was my responsibility to do that in detail for you, dear reader, but I can\u2019t stop myself from talking about this year\u2019s budget. That\u2019s because for the first time in several years, there are significant cuts that will impact us all.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s far from the only time Long Beach has seen service cuts. The last biggy was during the Great Recession \u2013 2008-2013. The dearly departed Bob Foster was mayor during most of that period, and the annual cuts back then were downright depressing.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s talk about this year instead.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s my aim to explain without using government gobbledegook, but please forgive me in advance if I forget to explain a term. I\u2019ve been infected with the jargon, and no one has found a cure.<\/p>\n
To start, you need to know we are talking primarily about something called the general fund. That\u2019s the portion of the city\u2019s budget that isn\u2019t restricted to specific uses \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve 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\u2019t cover your expenses. That\u2019s because either a.) your income decreases or b.) your expenses increase. When both happen at the same time, that\u2019s Trouble with a capital T.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what has happened to Long Beach. It\u2019s 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 \u2013 that\u2019s a 7.88% reduction, for you math geeks.<\/p>\n
Why did this happen? First, the city\u2019s income (primarily taxes of different types) has slowed. A couple of other major sources of money \u2013 federal grants and oil profits \u2013 have plummeted as well.<\/p>\n
Second, expenses are increasing, just like they are for you. One example is the new contracts for police officers and firefighters. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
You know I\u2019m loath to criticize the current federal administration, but the plain fact is it doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But we care about us, right?<\/p>\n
Here are a few of the cuts Long Beach\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s proposed budget. That worked really well this year, because some significant revenue increases occurred between staff\u2019s work and giving it to the mayor. For example, the city saves $1.5 million because we don\u2019t have to have a municipal election in November \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
There will be a series of public meetings, budget presentations, etc. over the next month \u2013 the council has to pass a balanced budget by Sept. 15. Be prepared to hear a lot of red herring arguments \u2013 City Manager Tom Modica calls them LBC Mythbusters in his budget presentation. The most common will be \u201cif you didn\u2019t build that $20 million amphitheater, we wouldn\u2019t be in this mess.\u201d But the money spent on the amphitheater came from a fund (the Tidelands Fund) restricted for use in a particular area, and it couldn\u2019t have been used to pay for citywide stuff. (And officials say it will make money. Really, it will.)<\/p>\n
Still, you are welcome, even expected, to fight for your own priorities through the budget process. It is your community, your money at stake.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I am a budget nerd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ouch. No, we better make that OUCH! I\u2019m talking about the Fiscal Year 2027 budget for Long Beach,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,8462,8461,131,133,132,137,3738],"class_list":["post-425405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-grunion-opinion","tag-grunion-pinch-of-salt","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-the-grunion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}