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    Los Angeles’s projected $1bn budget shortfall will lead to layoffs, officials say

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    Battered by the aftermath of historic wildfires and worsening economic conditions, the city of Los Angeles is projecting that it will face an estimated $1bn shortfall in its budget next year, which is likely to result in major cuts to city services.Next year’s nearly $1bn budget gap “makes layoffs nearly inevitable”, city administrative officer Matt Szabo told the city council on Wednesday. “We are not looking at dozens or even hundreds of layoffs, but thousands.”In a statement on Wednesday, the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, said that she was preparing a budget for next year that would “deliver fundamental change in the way the City operates”.In her “reform budget”, Bass wrote in a public letter addressed to Szabo: “We must consider no program or department too precious to consider for reductions or reorganization.”The Trump administration’s trade and immigration policies are likely to make Los Angeles’s already bad economic situation even worse in the coming year, Szabo told city officials in Wednesday’s meeting.Inflation and a weakening economy, combined with the disruption and damage of January’s wildfires, have already driven an estimated $141m reduction in revenue from the city’s business tax, sales tax and hotel tax through the end of February, Szabo said.“Federal trade policy is not only likely to spur further inflation, but also to slow growth and dampen international travel, upon which our hotel tax relies,” he added.Donald Trump’s pledges of enacting mass deportations of undocumented people across the country could also have a damaging effect on Los Angeles, and affect the local economy.“Federal immigration policy provides a particular threat to our local economy,” Szabo said. “The construction industry in the state of California is estimated to be about 40% undocumented, and, due to the fires, there is nowhere in the country where demand for construction and construction-related services will be higher than here in Los Angeles.”The city is also struggling with a dramatic increase in lawsuit liabilities over the past three years, with payouts in the past year likely totaling $320m.Szabo said that working with state lawmakers in Sacramento to cap payouts in lawsuits against the city is one strategy to address the city’s ballooning liabilities. He also said that making Los Angeles homeowners pay more for solid waste collection, which he said the city’s general fund is currently subsidizing, could close $200m of the gap in next year’s budget.The extent of the city’s financial problems took some local officials by surprise, the Los Angeles Times reported, quoting councilmember Bob Blumenfield as saying: “There’s no question that all of us are in shock with this number.” More

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      Trump signs order to shift disaster preparations from Fema to state and local governments

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      Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that seeks to shift responsibility for disaster preparations to state and local governments, deepening the president’s drive to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).The order, first previewed by the White House on 10 March, calls for a review of all infrastructure, continuity and preparedness and response policies to update and simplify federal approaches.It said “common sense” investments by state and local governments to address risks ranging from wildfires to hurricanes and cyber attacks would enhance national security, but did not detail what they were or how they would be funded.“Preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” the order said. “When states are empowered to make smart infrastructure choices, taxpayers benefit.”The order calls for revising critical infrastructure policy to better reflect assessed risks instead of an “all-hazards approach”, the White House said in a fact sheet on the order.It creates a “National Risk Register” to identify, describe and measure risk to US national infrastructure and streamlines federal functions to help states work with Washington more easily.Trump in January ordered a review of Fema that stopped short of shuttering the country’s lead disaster response agency and a White House official said the latest order was not aimed at closing Fema.Rob Moore, the director of the flooding solutions team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, accused the Trump administration of systematically weakening US disaster readiness.“From day one, the Trump administration has been eroding the nation’s capacity to plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters,” Moore told Reuters.“They’ve overseen the dismissal of 1,000 Fema staff – who won’t be there to respond to a flood or wildfire – and are withholding funding from local and state governments who are doing risk reduction projects and more.“Shana Udvardy, a senior researcher at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she was concerned the order marked “another dangerous step” that would leave communities with fewer resources to prepare for future disasters.“The executive order shifts most of the responsibility for disaster preparedness to state and local governments, asking them to make more expensive infrastructure investments without outlining the federal role in that,” she said. More

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      LA mayor Karen Bass ousts fire chief after public rift over wildfire response

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      Six weeks after the most destructive wildfire in city history, Los Angeles’s mayor, Karen Bass, ousted the city’s fire chief on Friday following a public rift over preparations for a potential fire and finger-pointing between the chief and city hall over responsibility for the devastation.Bass said in a statement that she was removing Chief Kristin Crowley immediately.“Bringing new leadership to the fire department is what our city needs,” Bass said in a statement.“We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch,” Bass claimed. She also accused the chief of refusing to prepare an “after-action report” on the fires, which she called a necessary step in the investigation.The Palisades fire began during heavy winds on 7 January, destroying or damaging nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killing at least 12 people in the Los Angeles neighborhood. Another wind-whipped fire started the same day in suburban Altadena, a community to the east, killing at least 17 people and destroying or damaging more than 10,000 homes and other buildings.Bass has been facing criticism for being in Africa as part of a presidential delegation on the day the fires started, even though weather reports had warned of dangerous fire conditions in the days before she left.In televised interviews this week, Bass acknowledged she made a mistake by leaving the city. But she implied that she was not aware of the looming danger when she jetted around the globe to attend the inauguration of the Ghanaian president, John Dramani Mahama. She faulted Crowley for failing to alert her about the potentially explosive fire conditions.Crowley has publicly criticized the city for budget cuts that she said made it harder for firefighters to do their jobs.Crowley was named fire chief in 2022 by Bass’s predecessor at a time when the department was in turmoil over allegations of rampant harassment, hazing and discrimination. She worked for the city fire department for more than 25 years and held nearly every role, including fire marshal, engineer and battalion chief. More