The Brief

This week, Los Angeles city council members will kick off a series of public hearings about the city’s $12.8 billion budget proposal.

The budget is essential for city operations and decisions made over the next few weeks will have a big impact on L.A.

Public budget hearings begin Tuesday at City Hall in Downtown L.A. The documents and discussions, which give you a peek into how the city’s planning for the future, are incredibly dense.

To make sense of it all — and to explain what the budget means for you — we’ve compiled this guide to understanding the budget.

What the budget covers

The overall budget is the way city leaders know what they can spend for the next year, which is mostly determined by the projected health of our funds. As my colleague Brianna Lee recently explained, the mayor proposes the budget and then a series of hearings take place to discuss the details and issue recommendations. Then the budget will go on to the full City Council for a vote.

The budget is made of multiple funds. Here are the main categories:

• The General Fund: This is the primary bank account that L.A. works out of. Unrestricted money is put into it, and it’s used to pay for a wide variety of services.
• The Reserve Fund: This is where unrestricted cash is set aside for unexpected needs and emergencies, like a savings account.
• The Budget Stabilization Fund: This is where cash from prosperous years is set aside to help offset lean financial years.
• Special funds: These are funds created for a special purpose and the money in them is restricted to that. An example is the special gas tax fund, which can only be used for our streets system. L.A. has more than 600 special purpose funds.

Former city controller Ron Galperin said to think of these funds like a trip to the grocery store where you have to pay separately for most of what’s in your basket.

“You can only use one account to buy tomatoes, and you can only use another account to buy cucumbers, and yet another account to buy your milk,” Galperin said. “Imagine how complicated that would be to just get out of the checkout line.”

Beyond these categories, things get a bit more complicated.

There are three entities that you’ll see listed on the city’s budget as an FYI, but their budgets are independent and get approved by a commission. Those are the department of water and power, the harbor, and L.A. World Airports (which includes LAX).

Chief deputy controller Rick Cole said certain other department budgets, like the library, are sheltered under the city’s charter from overall budget cuts. They’re still subject to City Council approval as more of a formality.

These financials are included in the mayor’s budget but in a different chapter than the rest of the proposed department budgets.

How the budget is calculated

Where your tax dollars go (and don’t go) each year can tell you where city leaders’ priorities are, but money is also a finite resource that has to be balanced against competing needs.

The city of L.A. uses a “modified program budget” system to make calculations. In simple terms, this means factoring in service needs for different departments, historical reviews of their past budgets, and performance metrics.

If you want to know how a department is measuring up to its goals, the budget documents include metrics that can help you compare programs and evaluate progress.

Where to begin exploring the budget

Jacky Guerrero is the director of equity in community investments for the nonprofit Catalyst California in L.A. She works to make the city’s budget process and documents easy to understand for community organizations.

The mayor’s proposed budget is comprised of these documents:

• Mayor’s budget summary
• Proposed budget
• Detail of department programs in two volumes (also known as the Blue Book)
• Revenue Outlook
• Supporting Information

You probably don’t have time to sift through hundreds of pages of financial reports, but that’s OK. The first document may be right up your alley.

“The mayor’s budget summary is … their way of trying to produce a more digestible sense of what is in these very dense documents,” Guerrero said. “It’s more focused on issues that resonate with people, not departments.”

The budget documents are a bit like nesting dolls. The proposed budget is a longer version of the summary. And the Blue Book is a longer version of that and it gets much more technical. Then out of the supporting documents, Guerrero said the revenue outlook is important to look over.

“It is giving you a sense of projections of sales tax revenues [and] how that money is generated,” Guerrero said. “These are actually important details because these are things that we pay into.”

Guerrero said she trains her staff to first look over the table of contents of the budget documents. To understand where to look, it’s a good idea to get comfortable with knowing what’s in there. The Mayor’s Message in the first section can help you get a sense of the city’s priorities. In this case, the 2024-2025 budget focuses a lot on housing.

Then once you have an overview, look at the departments that interest you.

How much can the budget change year to year?

One thing to understand is that city budgets typically don't change quickly. While there have been movements to realign the city’s financial priorities overall, such as investing more into community programs and less into police, you won’t see a big difference year over year.

The vast majority of the budget proposed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass last week, will not be changed during the budget hearing review process.

Some of that is by design. The city’s process has a very short turnover. Almost as soon as the budget is put into action, leaders begin planning for the following year. Cole, from the city controller’s office, said this is why they’re advocating for L.A. to move to a two-year budget term.

“The budget process takes 11 months,” Cole said. “So just cranking through the process eats up an enormous amount of time, energy, paper, and angst, which leaves actually very little time to think deeply about how we're spending the money.”

It’s an economic thing too. Making sharp changes to the budget, Cole said, could create tough layoff issues for city staff, which is why changes happen incrementally. The city of L.A. is among the largest employers in L.A. County.

Another thing to consider is that while the budget documents were only made public in April, the likelihood of them changing much at this stage is rather low. That means public input, and the incoming back-and-forth between the mayor and City Council on finances likely won’t lead to drastic differences in what gets adopted.

But it may not be small peanuts either.

“It’s what insiders at City Hall call budget dust,” Cole said. “For the average person, $750,000 is a lot of money, but it’s less than one hundredth of a percent of the budget. The budget hearings do have an impact — probably the most in the 1% range, but 99% of the budget that the mayor proposes will be adopted.”

The city’s first budget hearing begins on Tuesday at 1 p.m. If you’re interested in participating, note that there’s only one official opportunity listed for in-person public comment during the May 1 hearing.

SEATTLE — This time was supposed to be different.

The U.S. men's national team came into this FIFA World Cup with a lineup full of players with key roles in Europe's top leagues. They had the name-brand coach — Mauricio Pochettino, of Tottenham, PSG and Chelsea fame. And they had homefield advantage, with every game on U.S. soil for the first time in three decades.

For weeks, the hype seemed like it might be real: The team's three wins over Paraguay, Australia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were the most ever by a U.S. men's squad in a World Cup. A new generation of American fans filled stadiums by the tens of thousands and tuned in on TV by the tens of millions.

But in the end, the Americans' exit was the same as it ever was: Eliminated yet again in the Round of 16 at the hands of a European team — this time, Belgium, by a score of 4-1.

From the moment they stepped onto the Seattle field, the U.S. was outclassed by their opponent, No. 9-ranked Belgium. Countless turnovers and defensive lapses were seized on by the Belgians, who needed only nine minutes to take a 1-0 lead.

Then, once the Americans equalized on a free kick by midfielder Malik Tillman, Belgium scored yet again in barely a minute of play. Belgian forward Charles De Ketelaere scored both his team's first-half goals.

After halftime, came an embarrassing nail in the coffin that silenced the Seattle sellout crowd for good — a 57th minute roll-in by Hans Vanaken after a slip-up by goalkeeper Matt Freese outside of the penalty area left the goal unguarded. Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku added a stoppage-time goal to seal the final score at 4-1.

Malik Tillman #17 of the United States celebrates scoring his team's only goal during their World Cup match against Belgium. In what was one of the few bright spots of the game, the U.S. pulled even with Belgium at 1-1. The tie lasted less than two minutes before Belgium scored again.

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The U.S. had entered Monday's game under a cloud of controversy around their striker Folarin Balogun, who was shown a red card in last week's Round of 32 match against Bosnia-Herzegovina. An automatic one-game suspension was set to sideline Balogun, the Americans' leading scorer at the World Cup, for Monday's game.

Then, the day before the game, a FIFA disciplinary panel took the highly unusual step of delaying Balogun's suspension by a year to allow him to participate. Then, news broke that President Trump had personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to encourage him to review the red card.

The Royal Belgian Football Association said it would protest Balogun's inclusion in the lineup. But even at full strength, the U.S. were never real contenders in Monday's game.

Belgium will advance to the quarterfinals for the third time in the past four World Cups, where it will face Spain on Friday in Los Angeles.
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California could begin testing students as early as kindergarten in math.

Proponents of Senate Bill 1067, including state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, say the goal is to identify students who are falling behind in math early so they can get help. More than 60% of California students perform below the benchmark on the state’s standardized math test.

“Math learning is cumulative, and when students fall behind in the early grades it becomes much harder to catch up,” Weber Pierson wrote in support of the bill. “At its core, this bill is about making sure every child builds a strong foundation in math, opening the door to lasting academic achievement, meaningful career pathways, and lifelong success in California’s innovation economy.”

How the law would work

By January 2028, schools would have to choose a math test for kindergarten, first and second grades from a list created by the state’s education department.

The State Board of Education would set the criteria for the test and consider multiple factors, including learning standards for math and how students’ demographic information, including their primary language, may affect their performance.

The state must also provide guidance for educators on how to interpret and explain test results to families. The results could not be used in teacher evaluations, student grades or to identify a disability.

The Senate Appropriations Committee found it would cost more than $100 million to develop and select the test, train educators and provide ongoing support as the policy is implemented.

What are the possible challenges?

Megan Franke, professor of education and vice chair of professional programs at UCLA, said one challenge is that many standardized assessments do not reflect all students' understanding of mathematical concepts.

“Young children solve problems differently than adults do, and they don't all solve problems in the same way at the same time,” Franke said.

For example, a student who doesn't remember the word for “11” may not lack an understanding of the number system, they just may be struggling with the vocabulary.

“Our number system is a little bit wonky, [in] that we don't count ten-one, ten-two, ten-three,” Franke said. “We made up words — eleven, twelve and thirteen.”

Franke said there may also be other reasons why students struggle with standardized assessments, including difficulty using technology or anxiety.

Franke said a single test, or intervention, is not a long-term solution.

“Really, we should be thinking about schools and how we help schools be these places…where they're creating these rich opportunities for each and every student to learn mathematics,” Franke said.

What's next 

The bill passed the state Senate unanimously in May and is now moving through the Assembly. You can sign up to track the bill's progress through the California Legislative Information website.

As Mexico took on England in the World Cup’s Round of 16 on Sunday, fans had one thing to say: “¿Y si sí?”

The chant translates to “What if, yes?” It refers to the swirling hope of: what if the Mexican national team wins the World Cup? What if Mexico breaks (more) historic records? What if?

The saying grew louder after Mexico ended a 40-year curse with a 2-0 win against Ecuador last week. The national team had not won a World Cup knockout game since 1986. Not only did the team advance to the Round of 16 knockout stage, but it did so without conceding a single goal.

Despite Mexico’s 3-2 loss against England on Sunday, “¿Y si sí?” took on a new kind of power for Mexico fans during the team’s World Cup run, especially in Southern California.

What does the phrase mean for fans? 

Jorge Leal, an assistant professor of history at UC Riverside, told LAist the term has grown in popularity in the last couple of weeks.

“It's a way of saying maybe it can happen this time. It gives people a new chant, and it's hopeful,” Leal said. “From being ‘Si se puede,’ which is a great phrase, but it's very tentative, to the ‘¿Y si, sí?’ I think it's a little more affirmative.”

“¿Y si sí?” is more empowering, whereas “Si se puede” is more aspirational, Leal added.

Sebastian Garcia said the phrase started off as more of a joke at the top of the tournament.

“Everyone kind of knew Mexico's history, and it was like it'd be cool, but it wouldn't happen,” Garcia said. “And then, as they started playing and they started winning … you start believing it, and then it kind of takes you over.”

What makes this team different? 

There are many reasons why this Mexican national team differs from previous years.

“We cannot discount that they're playing at home, and that home advantage is huge,” Leal said. “This national team came together with really low expectations. People were very skeptical, myself included. There's a couple really great players, but most of them are young or improving.”

Throughout the global tournament, however, that skepticism turned into optimism.

“This national team has beaten the odds,” Leal said. “We were not expecting much of them, but now we can dream that they're going to beat expectations.”

Nevertheless, Sunday’s loss was heartbreaking, Leal said.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DaPQ-RyA7jA/

Why it matters 

Mari Garcia said Mexican Americans, and Latinos overall, have been feeling so much uncertainty in the last year, especially following last summer’s ICE raids.

“Another soccer player, when asked about that phrase, he said ‘¿Por que no?’ (Why not?), and I think that's simply the answer,” Mari said. “(It’s) reaffirming that we are capable of doing anything.”

Mexico’s run was more than 20 days of euphoria that show how unifying global events can be, Leal added.

“We have been in an era that ethnic Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Chicanos, people of Mexican descent - we have been under persecution,” Leal said.

As the World Cup continues on, Leal said, what keeps us from continuing the watch parties and collectivity?

“Obviously, the ones for the Mexican team are much more fun, but … I think in L.A., in a region that sorely needs this type of collective event, we can see how they can bring people together,” Leal said. “It's very bittersweet, but I think that we can … rejoice that it happened, that we lived through this very special three-and-a-half weeks.”

Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations tried to track down Rochester, N.Y. resident David Streever last month and give him a warning notice alleging that he had potentially violated the law when he wrote a harsh email months earlier to the former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Now a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C. argues Streever's January email was protected speech and the federal agents' and their superiors violated Streever's First Amendment rights.

NPR reported last week about HSI agents trying to contact Streever first at his home and later at a hotel over an email that Streever wrote to Todd Lyons, who stepped down as the acting director of ICE at the end of May.

FIRE's lawsuit says the First Amendment protects Americans' rights to speak out against police but says the "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is actively threatening that freedom, tracking down and retaliating against speakers like Plaintiff David Streever because he exercised his fundamental right to criticize one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in the United States."

The suit goes on to say, "Our Constitution does not tolerate such a brazen abuse of authority."

Streever wrote to Lyons' government email address on Jan. 26 after federal immigration officers in Minneapolis fatally shot two U.S. citizen observers during the immigration enforcement surge there.

The three-paragraph note compared Lyons to a Nazi and predicted that Lyons would be tormented by his own conscience. It has the subject line, "What's next."

Five months later, on June 23, two HSI agents rang the doorbell of Streever's Rochester home and then left a document with Streever's wife for him to sign. It was labeled "WARNING NOTICE" and "YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW," and described federal laws that make it a crime to threaten federal officials. The notice said ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility had identified an email to Lyons that may violate federal law and the office "is requesting that you promptly remove and/or discontinue the aforementioned behavior."

The bottom of the form reads, "Receipt of this Notice will be taken into consideration, should you continue to be involved in any criminal activities described above."

Streever was taking his 7-year-old daughter on a vacation to a Finnish theme park when the agents visited his home. He and his daughter landed at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport two days later and made their way to a nearby airport hotel to sleep.

That evening, Streever was told by the hotel front desk that a federal agent from the Department of Homeland Security had come to see him and had left a business card. His wife had not told the agents which hotel he would be staying at, raising questions about how Streever had been tracked to that location.

"Like many Americans, I was deeply upset after the shootings in Minnesota and I felt compelled to do something," Streever said in a statement. "Writing an email to the head of ICE seemed like the least I could do to express my sense of outrage. I never dreamed it would lead to a knock on my door by federal officers or descending on my hotel in the dark of night."

The lawsuit names three federal agents who tried to contact Streever as defendants along with Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and ICE officials.

The suit argues the federal agents' actions have caused Streever to self-censor his views, and alleges they violated a First Amendment bar on the government threatening people over protected speech.

The lawsuit asks for the court to find that Streever's email was protected by the First Amendment, and to bar defendants "from taking any further actions, formal or informal, to coerce, threaten, retaliate against, or intimate repercussions directly or indirectly to Plaintiff Streever for his protected speech and petitioning activity."

The suit also asks the court to declare the warning notices federal agents are issuing people are "sufficient" to chill free expression protected by the First Amendment.

"ICE's issuance of formal "WARNING NOTICE" documents to critics who engage in protected speech—and its decision to have federal agents deliver those warnings in person—can have only one purpose: to systemically chill ICE's critics and coerce them into silence," the suit reads.

DHS initially responded with the same statement that it provided last week when NPR first asked about Streever's case. "ICE investigates all credible threats towards its employees and officers, including threats to the ICE Director. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on any ongoing investigations."

Later on Monday DHS sent an additional statement. "Any allegation DHS and its components are attempting to 'squash' free speech is categorically FALSE," it reads.

"Our law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, child sex abusers, and rapists. They are experiencing coordinated campaigns of violence against them and facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, a 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats."

NPR has not verified the statistics shared by DHS.

"Anyone who assaults or threatens our law enforcement officers will face the consequences," the statement concludes.

Adam Steinbaugh, senior attorney at FIRE, said in a statement the government's delayed response to Streever's January email undermines its investigation.

"If someone is really threatening a government official, you don't wait five months to act on it," Steinbaugh said in the statement. "The fact that authorities didn't respond immediately shows that David presented no threat. This pursuit is designed to intimidate lawful speech, pure and simple."

Poll worker given the same warning notice

The lawsuit mentions that the same day HSI agents visited Streever's home on June 23, they also confronted Paigelynne Gonyea, a Syracuse resident who was working at a polling place for the New York primary election that day, about an Instagram post.

While Gonyea was at Syracuse's Central Library working the polls, an HSI agent left her a voicemail that said the agents had just visited her former apartment and were calling "in reference to a post that we believe you made on Instagram where you doxxed an ICE agent back in January."

Doxxing typically refers to releasing sensitive information about a person online.

Gonyea called the agent back. She said the agents had wanted her to come outside the polling place to speak with them but she told NPR she did not trust them, and had told them to come talk to her inside the polling place when there was a lull in voters.

Local election officials later said the federal agents should not have gone inside, given that police are not supposed to enter polling places unless there is an emergency and a recently enacted New York law bars federal immigration officers from voting sites.

Video captured by fellow poll workers shows two agents with badges speaking with Gonyea inside the library and delivering a warning notice that said her Instagram account may have violated the law. Gonyea said the agents did not tell her which of her posts had prompted their visit but they had confirmed it was a post about Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis.

Gonyea denied to NPR and other news outlets that she had ever doxxed Ross and had said she thought the agents were referring to a post she made that identified Ross by name after the Minnesota Star Tribune had reported it, and called for Ross to be indicted. That post is still visible on her Instagram account.

But after NPR and other media outlets wrote about the encounter, DHS released a statement that said Gonyea "committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online." The statement continued, "Doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that puts their lives and their families in serious danger…If you doxx our officers, we will investigate you, and you will be brought to justice."

DHS did not respond to requests from NPR to provide evidence that Gonyea had doxxed Ross. But the department did share with the Associated Press a redacted screenshot taken from a cell phone of a different Instagram post that looks like it was posted from Gonyea's account.

The post that was shown to AP is a photo of Ross with text that reads, "The killer's name is Jonathan Ross of" and the rest is redacted, presumably by DHS. The post does not currently appear on Gonyea's Instagram account. The screenshot shows it was taken six hours after the post went up but does not show a date.

Gonyea told NPR she had the opportunity to review the screenshot of the post but she did not believe she had posted it.

"Based on everything I know, I do not believe that I made that post, and I have no independent recollection of ever creating or publishing it," she told NPR in a text message.

"There is additional context that I believe is important, and I look forward to addressing those matters through the appropriate process rather than in the press," she wrote.

"What has not changed is my concern about the broader constitutional issues raised by my experience, including free speech, due process and government accountability."

Steinbaugh from FIRE told NPR last week that a social media post that shares a person's address alone is not a criminal offense.

"What the law criminalizes is publishing an address or sharing an address with the intent to convey a threat," Steinbaugh said. "So if you post an address and say, 'Hey, gang, at 5:00 tonight, we're going to all meet up here with our pitchforks and torches,' that puts you more in the ballpark of a threat."

He said some social media posts that publicized Ross's address were in the context of a broader public debate about whether federal immigration officers can wear masks and refuse to identify themselves "and essentially [act] almost as a secret police." He said for that reason, some posts that shared information about Ross were a form of protest.

"People might think that that is speech that people should not engage in, but it's still protected and it can't be criminalized," Steinbaugh said.

Gonyea and Streever are the first two people who have made public that they received warning notices from Homeland Security agents about their online communications.
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