Massive wildfires roaring through the Los Angeles area left neighborhoods in ruins on Jan. 8, killing at least two people and threatening Southern California landmarks.
Three major blazes that erupted just a day earlier blanketed the city with a dangerous, thick cloud of smoke and ash and destroyed homes across the area, from the Pacific coast inland to Pasadena. The fire burning in Pacific Palisades is already one of the most destructive in the modern history of the city of Los Angeles.
As the wildfires burned, multiple social media posts claimed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6 million, months before the fires broke out.
THE QUESTION
Did Los Angeles cut $17.6 million from the fire department’s budget?
THE SOURCES
Matthew Szabo, the Los Angeles administrative officer
Ben Ceja, a Los Angeles assistant city administrative officer
THE ANSWER
Yes, Los Angeles cut $17.6 million from the fire department’s budget. That amount represents a roughly 2% decrease from the previous year.
Sign up for the VERIFY Fast Facts newsletter here
WHAT WE FOUND
Records show that the City of Los Angeles decreased the Los Angeles Fire Department’s funding by nearly $17.6 million this fiscal year. However, that’s roughly a 2% decrease from the previous year’s budget.
In June 2024, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed the City of Los Angeles’ budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The LAFD’s total budget was $819,637,423, with $773,962,965 for fire department salaries and $45,674,458 for expenses, according to a budget summary published on the Los Angeles City Administrative Officer’s website.
“This budget serves as a reset, in part by continuing to hire for critical positions including police officers and firefighters while eliminating some of the department’s vacant positions, thereby prioritizing our City family over empty desks,” said Bass in a statement.
During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, a budget summary shows that the LAFD’s total budget was $837,191,237. That means that the LAFD’s budget was cut by $17,553,814, or around 2%, this fiscal year. Bass originally wanted to cut the fire department’s funding by nearly $23 million, according to a proposed budget published by the mayor’s office.
Some social media posts suggest that at least some of the LAFD’s funding was redirected to the Los Angeles Police Department’s nearly $2 billion budget. We can VERIFY that the LAPD did get a nearly $126 million increase in funding this fiscal year, according to a graphic shared on X by Los Angeles Controller Kenneth Mejia in October 2024. The same graphic shows that the fire department’s funding decreased by $17.6 million.
Credit: Los Angeles Controller Kenneth Mejia
In November 2024, the Los Angeles City Council approved a four-year, $203 million contract with the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, a union representing LAFD personnel, that will increase base wages and improve health benefits, according to multiple news outlets.
On Jan. 9, 2025, Ben Ceja, an assistant city administrative officer, told VERIFY that the city’s General Fund budget for this fiscal year includes an undisclosed amount to cover the potential increases to existing staffing costs in an account outside the fire department's budget.
“These funds will be transferred into the Fire Department budget during the course of the fiscal year,” Ceja said.
Los Angeles City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo said on Jan. 13 that the department estimates the direct cost of the increases at $53.4 million.
“I expect to transfer the dollars in our next financial status report to Council, early March,” Szabo said.
VERIFY reached out to the Los Angeles mayor’s office for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The Associated Press contributed to this report