Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ proposed $13 billion budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year includes a historic investment of nearly $1.3 billion to combat the homeless crisis, as well as plans to aggressively recruit new officers to staff up the city’s police force, with a goal of adding about 400 sworn officers by June of next year.
Calling it a “bold” budget, Bass said her goal is to make deep, yet sustainable, changes.
“There is a difference between spending and investing,” the mayor said at a Tuesday, April 18, press conference to discuss her proposed spending plan. “This budget makes investments to bring people inside, and public safety, and in other areas that will net a return in terms of lives saved, in terms of quality of life and better neighborhoods. And it will save the city money in the long run.”
Bass said her budget reflects the city’s values and invests in the most critical needs, including homelessness, public safety and funding a “new L.A.”
Of the $1.3 billion allocated toward homeless services, $250 million would be used to scale up Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature initiative to move people from homeless encampments to indoors.
Another $47 million would go toward purchasing motels or hotels to house the homeless, which the Bass administration said would be cheaper over the long term than paying nightly room rental rates to hotel and motel owners, as the city is currently doing.
The proposed budget also includes $150 million in Measure ULA dollars for homeless programs. Voters approved Measure ULA, a tax on the sale of properties worth more than $5 million, in November. It is expected to generate $600 million to $1.1 billion annually for the city.
Due to ongoing litigation that is challenging the ballot measure, Bass said she only included $150 million in ULA funds in next year’s budget so that, should a judge strike down Measure ULA, the city would still have enough money to repay the $150 million due to FEMA…
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