The Brief

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday unveiled a $14.9 billion budget that is significantly rosier than last year’s spending plan, when she suggested massive layoffs and service cuts to accommodate a billion-dollar deficit.

This year, because of a projected increase in revenues, the mayor is proposing no layoffs and a modest expansion of street services. Bass' budget also calls for hiring police officers to keep up with retirements and resignations, maintaining Fire Department spending and holding steady funding for homelessness programs.

“This budget is about protecting the progress we have made and making clear that Los Angeles is moving forward and will not go backward,” Bass said at a news conference.

In the proposal, the reserve fund is 5.7% of the general fund, or $490 million. The budget does not dip into the reserves, in contrast to last year’s plan.

Bass is seeking re-election this year. The primary is June 2.

Some of her challengers in the upcoming election, including Councilmember Nithya Raman, criticized Bass’ proposal as doing little more than maintaining the status quo.

“The budget the Mayor released today tells us the plan is to largely keep doing what we're doing — but what we're doing is not working,” Raman said in a statement.

Next, the proposal will go to the City Council for consideration. Budget hearings will be conducted in the coming weeks.

Increasing revenue

Among the reasons city officials say revenue will go up is the expected influx of thousands of visitors to World Cup soccer matches this summer. More travelers mean more people staying in hotels and paying hotel taxes, as well as more sales tax revenue.

The budget projects a $412 million increase in general tax revenue, including $71 in business taxes, $34 million in sales taxes and $67 million in utility taxes.

The budget would add 170 new positions in the department that handles street repairs and increase funding for street and sidewalk fixes, curb-ramp installation, street sweeping, bulky item pickup and dedicated illegal dumping enforcement throughout the city.

The budget also proposes hiring 510 police officers, representing a target of 8,555 for the Police Department and enough to keep up with attrition, according to budget officials. Bass has set a goal of 9,500 officers.

“It’s about preventing the shrinkage of LAPD,” Bass said.

That proposal is likely to see opposition from some council members who want to see the department shrink and funding for unarmed response teams increase.

Inside Safe

The budget sustains citywide coverage for civilian unarmed crisis response, maintaining deployment of 500 crossing guards and expanding a program that aims to help children get to and from school safely and protect them from gang violence.

Under the budget, funding for Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature program to address homelessness, would remain about the same — $104 million.

The mayor touts an 18% drop in street homelessness as evidence of its success.

The budget maintains funding for the city Fire Department. In November, voters are expected to decide whether to increase the sales tax by half a percent to pay for more firefighters and equipment.

Criticism for the budget

Bass’ challengers immediately criticized her budget as lacking vision.

“This budget maintains a status quo of reduced services and higher fees, the direct result of fiscally irresponsible decisions made by this Mayor in prior years,” Raman said in her statement.

In January, the council member voted against Bass’ plan to hire 170 more police officers.

Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and another Bass challenger, said keeping the budget flat “implies that the status quo is working.”

“That is tone-deaf to the city of Los Angeles as Angelenos overwhelmingly feel we need change," he said.

The budget needs to be approved by the City Council and signed by the mayor by July 1, the start of the fiscal year.

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.