Did Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the city council cut the fire department's budget before the January 2025 wildfires? No, that's not true: While the initial 2024-25 budget for the Los Angeles Fire Department reduced spending by about 2 percent, later decisions -- like approving a new labor contract and buying equipment -- actually increased the budget by 7 percent. However, the city controller's office told Lead Stories that the increase hadn't been transferred to firefighters as of January 10, 2025.
The claim appeared in a post on Threads on January 8, 2025. The post said:
Friendly reminder last year LA City Council approved the mayors budget to cut $23 million from the LA Fire Dept. Yet gave LAPD a $138 million even tho crime has decreased & there are fewer cops. Pass it on.
This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Fri Jan 10 22:44:09 2025 UTC)
This post provided no evidence to support the assertion that Bass and the city council cut the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) budget months before the January 2025 wildfires. Instead, it largely echoed a New York Post article (archived here) published on January 8, 2025, with the headline: "LA Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6M, focused on homeless spending -- months before wildfires turned city into hellscape."
In Los Angeles, the city council approves the budget after the mayor proposes it, according to the City of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles City Controller
The Los Angeles City Controller's office is responsible for the city's accounting, auditing and payroll.
In a January 10, 2025, email to Lead Stories, Diana Chang, director of communications at the Controller's Office, said the 2024-25 budget, which was passed in the summer of 2024, shows about a 2 percent cut in the fire department's funding (archived here):
LAFD's operating budget got reduced by $17.6M - part of that reduction included 61 total positions (civilian) being eliminated.
The 2023-24 budget (archived here) put LAFD funding at $837.19 million. For the 2024-25 (archived here), the LAFD budget was set at $819.64 million, or $17.55 million less than the previous year. The fiscal or budget year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30.
While that seems like a clear-cut budget reduction, it's not that simple. The city was in negotiations with the firefighters' union on a new contract and reached a new deal (archived here) in November 2024, months after the 2024-25 budget was approved.
Anticipating but not knowing how much the new deal would cost the city, Chang told Lead Stories the overall city budget included funds to cover raises for the firefighters. She said:
On July 1, 2024, $104,829,960 was set aside in the City's General Fund's Non-Departmental Unappropriated Balance (UB) for 'Department Payroll Reconciliation' to cover citywide payroll changes (these funds are non-departmental meaning they're not assigned to any specific department).
Chang added that the controller's office didn't know the total cost of the LAFD raises for all the firefighters, writing:
Our City's accounting system shows no indication that funds have been transferred to cover the raises in the agreement, so far at least. ... we see no indication that funds have been transferred for the Fire Department's raises.
The Los Angeles Times reported (archived here) on January 10, 2025, that the raises totaled $53 million, while "new firetrucks and other department purchases" added another $58 million. The story continued:
Once those two line items were added, the fire department's operating budget actually grew by more than 7% compared to the prior fiscal year, according to the city's financial analysts.
Bottom line: The Los Angeles mayor and city council didn't slash fire department funding even if it hasn't given the firefighters their raises yet.
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At the time this was written, VERIFY had reviewed the same claim.
For more Lead Stories fact checks on claims involving Los Angeles wildfires, click here.
