LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass on Friday signed the city’s revised $13 billion budget for fiscal year 2023-24, which she said charts a new course for the city — one that is “stronger, happier, healthier and safer.”
The budget will take effect July 1.
“Just last month, I stood in this room and said that the budget was being presented as a reflection of our values and invest in the most critical needs,” Bass said. “I also said that I was confident that the relationship that we had built with a City Council that we would have a collaborative process.
“That’s what we have here today — that we come together united to sign the budget.”
There is a difference between spending and investing, she added, and this budget makes investments to bring people inside, improve public safety and other areas that will “net a return in terms of lives saved, in terms of the quality of life and better neighborhoods, and that will save the city in the long run.”
She thanked Council President Paul Krekorian and City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, chair of the council’s Budget, Finance and Innovation Committee, and the rest of the Council for “locking arms” with her to approve a budget that “will bring the urgency to the crisis we face.”
City Council President Paul Krekorian said the budget invests in “basic infrastructure and quality of life.” The budget will fund the basic services that people in Los Angeles need, such as improving the environment and lays the foundation for economic recovery post COVID, he added.
Pro Temp Councilman Curren Price reiterated the budget represents “our shared valued, shared commitment and sheer determination to get the job done.”
The mayor signed the revised $13 billion budget following the City Council’s vote earlier this week to approve its amended version of her originally proposed spending plan earlier this week.
After weeks of deliberations, hours of public comment and final revisions, the Council…
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