Mayor Eric Garcetti signed off Thursday on an $8.76 billion city budget that includes a promise to spend $138 million from city coffers and other sources to address homelessness.
The fiscal 2016-17 budget, which lays out the upcoming year’s financial path for the city beginning July 1, was approved last month by the City Council.
“This is a very strong budget,” Garcetti said Thursday, pointing to the city’s upgraded bond rating and the $300 million-plus reserve fund, which he said is the highest amount “in the city’s history.”
The budget also includes funding for paving 2,400 miles of streets, a street cleaning program, additional firefighters and an increase in civilian employees in the police department to free up police officers to be able to work patrol.
The budget this year explicitly addresses the increase in homelessness in the city. For the first time, the budget includes a plan for spending a significant amount on solving homelessness, according to Garcetti.
Garcetti, who was joined by Councilman Paul Krekorian and homeless services providers and advocacy groups at a City Hall signing ceremony Thursday, said the $138 million “will multiply our investment in housing and services by 10 fold since I entered office.”
Finding the money for the homelessness budget “was not easy,” he said. “We stretched, we reached, we looked for every possible penny.”
But he said “Homelessness after all has to be our top priority — lives literally depend on it.”
The majority of the funds will be used for housing, including shelter beds and 600 residential units for the homeless. The remaining funds will go to services, such as job training.
About $64.7 million, or nearly half of the spending on homelessness, will come from the general fund, with $6.4 million from special accounts.
The rest of the budget for homelessness is still dependent on decisions to be made by the City Council and has not been finalized.
About $20 million is projected to come from a proposed policy of charging development fees on projects, with studies still to be done on the idea.
The plan also calls for bringing in another $47 million by selling off city-owned properties or converting them into affordable housing, an idea that also still needs to be vetted by the City Council.
City officials also view the $138 million as a one-time expenditure, and are preparing to ask voters to help come up with the projected $1.8 billion needed to address homelessness over the next 10 years. At least two council members are pushing for a bond measure, while county officials are considering a ballot measure to tax high-income earners under what is being described as a “millionaire’s tax.”
The budget’s focus on homelessness this year also appeared to highlight ongoing tensions between the city and critics of the city’s policies around homelessness, including under a law that bans daytime encampments.
General Dogon, one of a handful of hecklers, shouted over remarks by Garcetti that the city was aggressively addressing homelessness, calling it “a damn lie.”
He also accused city officials of not being genuine on the issue, saying “all you do is talk,” and another heckler said the city has continued to put money into the police budget to enforce laws that essentially criminalize homelessness.
The hecklers were loud enough that Krekorian, who attempted to discuss the city’s improved financial state, had to cut short his prepared remarks.
The 2016-17 budget consists of $5.5 billion in spending from the general fund, and $3.2 billion from various special funds.
The police department will receive $1.486 billion, with some of the funding going toward adding about 300 civilian employees so that sworn officers can be freed up to do other work.
Of the $634 million allocated for the fire department, $17.3 million will be spent on hiring and training 230 new firefighters. The department is undergoing an effort started last year to rebuild firefighter ranks after significant cuts were made in 2011 amid the recession.
Angelenos will also see more sidewalks being fixed in the upcoming year, with the city planning to spend $31 million on repairs under a legal settlement with disability advocates.
The defunct Park Ranger program also has been restored, with funding in the budget for 12 positions. The spending blueprint also includes more funding for cleaning streets, tree trimming, installing speed humps, and purchasing library books and equipment.
The budget sets aside $334 million in reserve to be used in emergencies and $93.14 million for the city’s budget stabilization fund.
—City News Service