Long Beach City Council approves $3.6 billion core services-focused budget
The City Council voted unanimously to approve the proposed budget Tuesday night bringing a close to the process that began in August.
Long Beach City Council members approved the proposed $3.6 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year Tuesday night with some last-minute increases to fund violence prevention efforts, encampment cleanups and a safe passage program for students walking home from school.
The vote came after weeks of hearings over the proposed budget, which is expected to be the last one buoyed by pandemic relief funds that are set to run out this year. The city is staring down a projected deficit of $61.5 million over the next five years but the budget adopted Tuesday won’t see cuts to city services.
A list of proposed additions was sent to the council by the Budget Oversight Committee earlier Tuesday afternoon. The list included an additional $1.9 million in spending that will be paid for with excess oil revenue.
The new spending includes items like continuing the city’s safe passage program ($300,000) that provides additional safety for students walking home from school and another $300,000 for the city’s health department to fund violence prevention programs were on the list.
With the additional funding, the Safe Passage program should be funded through the end of the current school year, according to the city.
Other services like homeless encampment and illegal dumping cleanups ($300,000), providing small grants to community groups and organizations for neighborhood projects ($150,000) and preserving two of the more than 70 health department positions that are set to lose funding due to grant funds running out ($190,263) also were bolstered by the committee's recommendations.
The budget focuses on core city services like cleaning and maintenance as well as investing in small businesses. The city plans to buy a trash barge to place in the Los Angeles River to prevent debris from making it into the ocean, something that has hampered water quality in some beach areas in the city.
Long Beach Public Works also plans to add a “concrete team” to use city employees to fix broken curbs and sidewalks similar to how it created a “slurry seal” team in the past that resurfaces city streets to help extend their lifespans.
City officials are also looking at ways to close the funding gap in the future by trying to grow the city's tax base through economic development like the planned amphitheater near the Queen Mary but also through the ballot box.
Long Beach voters will decide whether a new tax on two power plants in the city will be implemented during the November election. If voters approve ending the exemption that the two plants have enjoyed for decades, city estimates put the potential future revenue from the new tax at approximately $15 million annually.
The City Council will take another procedural vote on the budget at its next meeting before the fiscal new year begins in October.
We need your support.
Subcribe to the Watchdog today.
The Long Beach Watchdog is owned by journalists, and paid for by readers like you. If independent, local reporting like the story you just read is important to you, support our work by becoming a subscriber.
