Karen Bass offers a status quo budget — with an ironic surprise

You might think that LA had no wildfires, no homeless problem, and no Olympic Games to stage, given how uninspiring Mayor Karen Bass’s 2026-27 budget proposal was on Monday.

Bass’ $15 billion budget was described as maintaining the status quo, or “treading water.”

Bass offered a modest increase to the fire department, which will receive 40 more firefighters and a total of $940 million. 

That’s $40 million more than was budgeted last year, though $60 million less than was actually spent in the wake of last year’s fires.

Karen Bass has revealed plans to splurge another near $15 billion in her budget as she desperately clings to power. Ringo Chiu

The mayor failed to mention the LAFD in her press conference until a reporter brought it up. The fires are an afterthought.

Curiously, as The California Post reported, just under $800 million will be spent on homeless services. 

That’s more than $150 million less than last year — not because the city is solving homelessness, but because — surprise! — the mayor’s pet program, Inside Safe, is slashing its budget from about $300 million to $100 million. 

Inside Safe isn’t working — and LA can’t afford it.

Bass proposed hiring an additional 510 police officers — which sounds great, until you realize that they will mostly be replacing officers who have been leaving.

The mayor said she was focused on “preventing the shrinkage” in the department. Hardly an inspiring image.

The budget projects that there will only be about 8,500 LAPD officers by next year. When she took office, there were just over 9,000. Before the coronavirus pandemic, and the city’s vaccine mandates, there were 10,000 officers.

Mayor Karen Bass unveils her 2026-2027 budget at City Hall. Ringo Chiu

Three years ago, Bass set a goal of increasing the size of the LAPD to 9,500. She’s only about 1,000 officers short.

Astonishingly, the word “Olympics” only appears twice in over 500 pages of text: once in a rosy revenue forecast, and a second time in a section proposing that hotels and motels be allowed to pay the Transient Occupancy Tax early, to help the city with infrastructure projects.

The mayor would say that standing still counts as progress when the city has been in so much financial trouble recently. 

But what the mayor’s budget lacks is any sense of vision for the city’s rebirth.

It’s a proposal simply to survive until the next crisis, rather than a plan to seize the opportunities that are coming our way, or to use post-fire rebuilding to rejuvenate LA.

Bass offers the status quo. What an odd way to head into election season.