In Sacramento, LA Mayor Bass seeks state money to close nearly $1 billion budget gap

Sandra McDonald, Taryn Luna and Julia Wick, Los Angeles Times on Apr 23, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass returned to Sacramento Wednesday to lobby state leaders for money to help close the city’s nearly $1 billion budget hole.

This is Bass’ second visit to the state Capitol in as many months — a homecoming of sorts for a former Assembly speaker who helped navigate the state’s 2009 budget crisis. She is undoubtedly well aware that the state is facing its own economic headwinds, which could hinder its ability — or appetite — for assisting L.A.

“It’s very, very important that we solidify those relationships,” Bass said Wednesday, restating the importance of keeping the city’s issues front and center, even while state legislators fend off their own budgetary crises.

The visit was particularly important, Bass said, because the city was in the rare situation of not having Southern California representation atop either house of the Legislature: Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) is from Northern California and Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) hails from Central California.

Two days ago, Bass presented her proposed budget, which would cut more than 2,700 city positions — about 1,650 of them through layoffs. Bass is hoping to avoid those layoffs, either through state funding or by renegotiating promised raises that have added considerable heft to personnel costs for the next fiscal year.

Those rising personnel costs are one of several factors compounding the city’s budget crisis, including the financial toll of the January wildfires and subsequent recovery efforts, spiraling legal payouts and a weakening national economy.

Bass has repeatedly lobbied Newsom and other state leaders for a relief package that could avert some or all of the job cuts. During her March trip to Sacramento, she and four members of the City Council met with Newsom as well as leaders from both chambers of the Legislature.

After that trip, Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne), who chairs the Los Angeles County Legislative Delegation, sent a letter signed by 22 other members of the state legislature to the Assembly budget committee requesting funding for the city.

Before Bass’ arrival, some Democrats at the Capitol were confused about her need to return to Sacramento and meet with lawmakers so soon after her visit last month. Her appearance was viewed by those Democrats as more about style than substance, giving her an opportunity to stand before cameras and show she is trying to address the city’s budget woes.

The city’s situation is further complicated by the fact that its budget process is happening concurrently with the state’s, meaning the City Council will have to move forward with its budget deliberations before knowing if state money is coming.

The governor’s revision to the state budget will be released in mid-May, so at that point, the city will have some idea of whether substantial resources may be coming from the state. But the revision is just a starting point for final budgetary negotiations between the governor and the Legislature, and the state budget won’t be completed until at least mid-June, weeks after the deadline for the City Council to approve its own budget.

Bass met with legislative leaders Wednesday but did not sit down with Newsom, who is in the middle of preparing his budget revision.

Bass told reporters that she was unable to get onto Newsom’s schedule. She stopped by his office hours later for an unplanned meeting with two of his top aides.

Her request for financial relief from the state could be a tough ask in a challenging budget year for California.

The state is facing higher than expected costs to provide healthcare coverage to low-income residents as well as the potential loss of billions of dollars as a result of federal funding cuts and state revenue declines from President Trump’s tariff policies. The tariffs on foreign imports and retaliatory levies from other countries are expected to hit tourism, agriculture and the technology sector particularly hard.

The state’s financial outlook is dire enough that it could swing from earlier projections of a relatively neutral budget to a staggering deficit in the year ahead.

Bass was joined Wednesday by City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, who was pushing for legislation to be introduced that would cap the damages that plaintiffs in lawsuits can seek against public entities. According to Feldstein Soto, 38 states cap these damages, and she would like to see a similar cap in California.

“We’re trying to bring California more into the mainstream and make sure that we don’t pay taxpayer dollars out unnecessarily or in disproportionate amounts,” Feldstein Soto said.

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(Los Angeles Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.)