For those trying to understand the LA city budget, I’m sharing here what I have learned along with resources to learn more.

First, the budget process. The Mayor’s Office creates the budget. City Council gives input and approves it. As legislators, they can affect it quite dramatically by proposing any kind of change. They vote on these amendments which go back to the Mayor to sign or veto.

This year, City Council did not approve or reject the Mayor’s budget in time, per our City Charter. When this happens, the Mayor’s budget goes into effect by default on July 1.

http://peoplesbudgetla.com/howbudgetworks 

Even after the budget goes into affect, City Council can vote to change it. It sounds like they typically do that on a quarterly basis but I don't see anything prohibiting them from changing it at any time.

(Screenshot from p23 of this year’s budget: http://cao.lacity.org/budget20-21/ProposedBudget/)

What they are doing now is trying to propose and approve amendments before July 1.

After July 1, money starts getting spent. The earlier amendments happen, the more money can be moved around.

(Trying is generous as they had plenty of time to give input and make adjustments like every year. They are at least trying to appear they are doing this though!)

There are several budget documents. They are dense and confusing. One day, we’ll enlist actors and artists to help bring it to life.

In the meantime, a good starting place is the city’s open budget tool (Click on Explore Full Expense Budget)
http://openbudget.lacity.org/ 

You can sort by department in this view which will show you the Police Department budget for example

Now, if you do this, you might wonder why it shows the Police Department at $1.86B when journalists and activists say LAPD gets around $3B.

The reason is the difference between Department costs and Program costs. Costs like electricity, building maintenance, pensions, and liability claims are not budgeted in the Department budget but in those respective city department budgets.

Dept Cost: $1.86B
Program Cost: $3.15B

This is true throughout the budget. One thing you might be trying to look at is how much is police spending compared to housing, education or transportation.

Here is the Housing and Community Investment Department’s budget. They support renters, landlords and folks transitioning off the streets into housing.

Dept Cost: $81.1M
Program Cost: $162.9M

Important to point out here that what makes this infinitely more complex is that when we talk about housing, education or transportation, money is not clearly in a single department. Nor is it all in the city budget.

LA County, LAUSD and Metro all have their own budgets.

Here are links to other relevant budgets

LA County
https://lacounty.gov/budget/ 
https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4.-2020-21-Recommended-Budget-Charts.pdf

Metro
https://www.metro.net/about/financebudget/

LAUSD
https://achieve.lausd.net/budget 
https://achieve.lausd.net/Page/16394 

These can be pretty dense too.

There is one document from LA County you might actually find useful. It's this 11 page PDF of pie charts visualizing the county budget.



https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4.-2020-21-Recommended-Budget-Charts.pdf

Lastly, as we’ve covered in past issues, our government likes to shift responsibility around a lot. Saying things like “The city handles that” or “That’s in the county budget.” As voters and members of the public, we can and should push back on that.

We don’t have to know the details. It’s not our problem how they get something done. We share the urgency we feel about pressing issues. We tell them what we want to see. It’s their job to sort out how to make it happen.

If you're interested in following the budget process, check out the #PeoplesBudgetLA and follow
@blmla
@PplsCityCouncil
@KNOCKdotLA
@christopherroth
@UnrigLA

They're all tweeting committee meetings and public engagement opportunities http://peoplesbudgetla.com