LA County $45.4 billion draft budget focuses on homeless, mental health services

Los Angeles County will spend about $45.4 billion in the coming fiscal year, about $1.4 billion less than last year’s final adopted budget, according to a preliminary budget recommended by county CEO Fesia Davenport released on Monday, April 22.

However, the county is adding 835 new positions for a total of 116,159 total county positions in the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget, Davenport reported. The new positions are funded almost entirely by federal and state dollars.

The county budget will include about $390.2 million in new revenues, mostly due to a 2.5% expansion of the economy driven by increased consumer spending, a strong jobs market and optimism in the investment market related to artificial intelligence technology, wrote Davenport in a letter to the Board of Supervisors.

But uncertainty in the real estate market could decrease property tax revenues in future years, Davenport warned.

“These additional funds are needed to fund substantial increases in wages and benefits for the county’s workforce,” reported Davenport.

The budget includes $728 million to fight homelessness by clearing encampments and moving them from the streets to temporary and permanent housing. The budget will increase housing slots by 23%; interim housing beds by 17%; permanent housing subsidies by 65%; a 21% increase in wraparound services for 27,500 people in permanent housing; and a 25% increase in permanent housing assistance for those in the private rental market.

In 2023, the county, in tandem with cities and nonprofit partners, brought indoors 38,000 people and doubled the number of mental health outreach teams. The county has set a goal this coming fiscal year of clearing one encampment every two weeks, but that depends on help from cities including Los Angeles.

“We cannot do it alone. Local cities must do their part,” Davenport said during a virtual briefing to the press on Monday. The county received $51 million from Gov. Gavin Newsom to address homeless encampments, she said.

Part of the homeless problem is that the roughly 50% of the homeless in the county, according to some surveys, have some form of mental illness. To address this, the county is bumping up the number of mental health clinicians in its employ.

More than a half of the new jobs in the budget are for positions in the county’s Department of Mental Health. DMH will add 452 positions, including personnel who will operate mental health clinics and work with the unhoused to help them connect with mental health counselors and services, Davenport said.

Other departments adding positions in the budget include Department of Public Social Services (122); Department of Public Health (52); and Department of Children and Family Services (48).

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will cost about $4 billion for 17,544 positions, she said, and the Sheriff’s Department is receiving a net total of 24 new positions.

In addition, the budget includes $300.6 million — or about 10% of ongoing, locally generated, unrestricted revenues — for the Board of Supervisors’ commitment to its “Care First, Jails Last” priorities aimed at incarceration diversion programs, Davenport reported. That is more than allocated to the public defender, the district attorney and about 30 other county departments, she reported.

New programs or program boosts funded in the FY 2025 budget include:

• Establishment of a new sexual assault council that will support survivors and develop policy to help prevent sexual violence.

• Allocates $7.5 million in Tobacco Settlement funding to Department of Public Health to address the rise in sexual transmitted infections.

• About $2.4 million in additional funds will expand a “guaranteed income program” for 200 additional transition age youth for two years; each will get $1,000 in monthly income.

Some revenue worries include the unknown outcome of the Child Victims Act that extends the statute of limitations on abuse cases, and could put in play cases dating back to the 1980s. Settlements could result in costly damages assessed against the county from those who can prove they suffered harm while in county institutions.

Though not in the budget, Davenport’s letter to the Supervisors estimates the total liability could top $3 billion. “We really don’t know what will happen until these cases are adjudicated,” Davenport said.

She said the county may realize additional costs from settlements involving the county jail system.

This is the first step in the county budget process. The recommended budget will be presented to the Board on Tuesday, and a public hearing is scheduled for May 15.

The Board is scheduled to deliberate and vote on a final budget on June 24, for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and runs through June 30, 2025. In October, revisions are made to the final budget.

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