… the budget picture is far from rosy. Chief Kristin M. Crowley of the Los Angeles Fire Department wrote a memo to the fire commission last month saying the overtime cut was creating “unprecedented operational challenges” — both in fulfilling everyday tasks like payroll processing and long-term planning for major emergencies like big wildfires or earthquakes.
She wrote that specialized programs, including air operations and disaster response, relied on staff working overtime hours and were at risk of becoming less effective. She added that the loss of civilian positions was also squeezing firefighters who had to backfill some of those responsibilities.
In November, Chief Crowley wrote a separate memo to the commission focusing on the bigger picture: a fire department that has not changed much in size since the 1960s despite the city’s population surging by more than a million people since then.
She wrote that the call volume rose by a factor of five between 1969 and 2023, but that the department had not been given the staffing and new fire stations it needs to respond effectively, and that response times were steadily increasing.
When the two sides did reach an agreement in November, that money was moved over to the fire department’s pot, according to Mr. Blumenfield’s office, meaning this year’s fire budget is actually $53 million more than last year.
How long was it before the budget got reallocated? And how much had this been going on before?
It sounds like a big part of the issue is that they haven’t been able to do mitigation - controlled burns, etc. If the budget has been slashed for a long time, suddenly dumping some cash in later is going to have a limited effect.
Yep, see -
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-wildfires-los-angeles-fire-chief-budget-cuts/ (archived at https://archive.is/a4IxG)
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/08/la-police-budget-palisades-fires/ (archived at https://archive.is/a4IxG)
e; also, this -
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/us/la-fire-department-budget-bass.html (archived at https://archive.is/xBCxj)
People are using the same NYT article to support both sides of this argument.
I’m not an NYT subscriber. What’s the deal here?
Weird way to cut a budget
How long was it before the budget got reallocated? And how much had this been going on before?
It sounds like a big part of the issue is that they haven’t been able to do mitigation - controlled burns, etc. If the budget has been slashed for a long time, suddenly dumping some cash in later is going to have a limited effect.