LA County budget outlines $88.9 million in cuts, but avoids layoffs

The Chief Executive Office of Los Angeles County announced $88.9 million worth of cuts in its latest budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. 

Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport's recommended spending plan, which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, would avoid layoffs but calls for a 3% cut to most county departments and eliminates 310 vacant positions. The Sheriff's Department, Public Works, Regional Planning and Mental Health are exempt from the cuts. 

While they are not county departments, Correctional Health Services, which provides healthcare in the jails and the Department of Health Services are also exempt.

Her office said the cuts are necessary to prepare for the "mounting financial challenges," such as the potential loss of hundreds of millions of federal funding, a tentative $4 billion settlement for child sexual assault victims and the ongoing costs from the wildfire recovery process — all while LA County home sales have declined, leading to a slow down in property tax revenue. 

"We are in uncharted territory with these simultaneous pressures on our budget," Davenport said. "Any of these alone would be daunting, but taken together these challenges—the wildfires, the AB 218 settlement, the threat of deep cuts in federal funding—are cause for great concern."

Davenport added that the cuts will save more than $50 million by cutting supplies, delaying equipment purchases and reducing the scope of some programs. 

After eliminating the vacant positions, Davenport's office said her $47.9 spending plan will account for 117,100 budgeted positions in the county's workforce if approved by the Board of Supervisors. 

Last month, Los Angeles' chief financial advisor Matt Szabo revealed the city's dire financial situation. Faced with seemingly no other options, Szabo said the city council may need to lay off thousands of city employees during the upcoming fiscal year to remedy a $1 billion shortfall. 

"The severity of the revenue decline, paired with rising costs, has created a budget gap that makes layoffs nearly inevitable," Szabo said during the March council meeting. "We are not looking at dozens or even hundreds of layoffs, but thousands."