When the Budget Doesn't Match the Rhetoric
Looking at the LA City Budget
I know so many eyes are looking at the Federal Funding Fiasco of 2025 (FFF25). I invite you to look on a map of the United States and to the far left of Washington DC (no pun intended) to the fourth largest economy in the world, California. Then move your finger south to Los Angeles.
That’s where I live.
That’s where last week 2 day laborers were picked up by ICE outside of a Home Depot where the org I get to direct has a location.
Los Angeles is where the spouse of a household worker member of the org was picked up by immigration at his house.
In November of last year, Los Angeles City Mayor, former Congresswoman and founder of a South LA nonprofit post the uprisings, Karen Bass declared that “Solidarity is an action, not rhetoric” when it came to enacting protections for migrants in the City of Angels. Yet, when Mayor Bass released her 2025-2026 Fiscal Year Budget Proposal the actions included cuts to programs that specifically serve immigrant communities.
Completed left out of her proposal are 7 Day Labor Centers which helps thousands of workers, regardless of immigration status connect with thousands of jobs, in addition to support for wage recovery in cases of wage theft, public health services such as vaccines, eye exams and HIV tests, climate accelerated disaster preparedness, relief and training and supply support for workers engaging in the post January wildfire clean up and rebuild. Sounds like that would cost a lot and slashing that and leaving vulnerable workers more exposed to exploitation and deportation like what happened in Pomona, it has to be a huge cost saving towards that 1 billion dollar deficit the City has.
Nope
It’s just over a million dollars.
Matt Szabo, The LA City Administrative Officer, who signed off on a memo to be released in tomorrow’s LA City Council Budget and Finance Commitee hearing maintaining no money for Day Labor Centers, is quoted in the LAist as pointing out the specific role undocumented construction workers are playing in the wildfire clean up.
But nope - no money to fit test those workers in P100s like we are planning to do.
Meanwhile the Los Angeles Police Department budget gets a boost of $6.1 million to its nearly $2 billion operational budget.
Pay attention to what cities are actually doing to defend communities against the fascist federal government.