LAFD Chief Crowley Advocates for More Funding

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristen Crowley made some candid remarks about how a reduction in the department’s budget and the elimination of civilian positions hurt the city’s response to the devastating wildfires ravaging the region — leading to an impromptu closed-door meeting with Mayor Karen Bass.

During interviews with CNN and Fox11, Crowley emphasized how she had been sounding the alarm since the “very beginning” about the needs of the Los Angeles Fire Department. She added that such impacts “did absolutely negatively impact” the department’s response.

“The $17 million budget cut and elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did, and has, and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair apparatus,” Crowley said on CNN.

“I want to also be clear that I have, over the last three years, been clear that the Fire Department needs help,” Crowley said. “We can no longer sustain where we are. We do not have enough firefighters.”

After being pressed by a Fox11 reporter on whether the city failed the department, Crowley said: “Yes.”

Her remarks led to a late-afternoon closed-door meeting Friday with Bass at City Hall. The two met at a time when they had been scheduled to deliver a public update on the fight against the various fires burning in the area. As a result, only Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell spoke at that briefing.

After the meeting ended, a representative for the mayor’s office told reporters Crowley had not been fired or resigned, and she was still LAFD chief.

Bass and the City Council have been criticized for the $17 million reduction for the LAFD shown in the City Administrative Office’s adopted budget document.

However, the fire department’s operating budget has grown since the city’s overall $12.8 billion spending plan was adopted on July 1, 2024, according to city documents, and is on track to exceed $950 million, though Crowley has stated the department nonetheless had to scale back some of its duties.

According to a December memo from Crowley, the department’s operating budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year was $819 million, a decrease of about 2% from the $837 million the department received in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

“(LAFD) is facing unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction in Overtime Variable Staffing Hours,” the memo reads. “These budgetary reductions have adversely affected the department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention and community education.”

City officials have insisted their spending ultimately will increase the LAFD’s operating budget this fiscal year.

A spokesperson for City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who was the chair of the council’s Budget Committee during deliberations over the 2024-25 budget, told the Los Angeles Daily News that the city increased the fire department’s overall budget by approximately $53 million.

He explained that $76 million intended to pay for sworn personnel was placed in a fund separate from the fire department’s regular account when the budget was adopted because contract negotiations with the union representing department employees were still taking place at the time.

The L.A. Times reported Thursday that the “overall fire department overtime, counting all categories, actually increased in this year’s budget by nearly $18 million.”

Matt Szabo, city administrative officer, whose office helps prepare the city budget, told The Times that budget reductions “did not limit the number of firefighters who responded to the Palisades Fire, or how long they worked.”

Bass told reporters at a morning news conference Wednesday there were no reductions that were made that “would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days.”

According to City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office, as part of the reduction in the department’s operating budget, 61 civilian positions were eliminated, of which three were “resolution positions,” meaning they were specific to projects with limited duration or funding.

In November 2024, the City Council and Bass approved a $203 million contract with the union representing the fire department’s sworn personnel. Members of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles such as firefighters, fire captains, apparatus operators, engineers and helicopter pilots received an annual 3% increase to their base wages, which will total 12% by the 2027-28 fiscal year.

They also received a 5% annual increase to their health benefits.

According to a city report, the agreement cost about $76 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year and is expected to cost $39.4 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year, $45.4 million for the 2026-27 and fiscal year and $42.2 million for the 2027-28 fiscal year.