The Brief

Most Los Angeles County departments would be required to reduce spending by 3% under an austere budget proposal unveiled Monday by the chief executive officer.

The $47.9 billion budget plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 reflects “extraordinary budget pressures” facing the county, according to a statement from the CEO’s office. Under the plan, the cuts total $88.9 million and include more than $50 million in savings from cutting supplies, delaying equipment purchases and reducing the scope of some programs.

The proposal does not include any layoffs but calls for the elimination of 310 vacant positions.

“This is a different budget. It’s reflective of us being in tough times,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said in an interview.

Some county departments will be exempt from the 3% cuts, county authorities said. They are: the Sheriff's Department, Public Works, Regional Planning and Mental Health. The Correctional Health Services Department, which provides healthcare in the jails, is also exempt.

Various unions and community organizations attended the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.

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Budget challenges

The proposed budget comes in response to mounting financial pressures — including from the recent $4 billion tentative settlement of thousands of childhood sexual assault claims against the county by people who were abused inside Probation Department-run juvenile halls and other county-run facilities over decades.

If approved by the Board of Supervisors, it would be the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

L.A. County is expected to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year until 2030 to cover the settlement, then millions more each year until 2050-51. The Board of Supervisors is also expected to issue a bond and dip into its $1 billion rainy day fund to pay for the settlement.

In addition, the county is facing the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding under the Trump administration.

Federal assistance makes up 13% of the county’s budget, and billions more flow into departments indirectly through the provision of health, mental health and substance abuse services to Medicaid beneficiaries and other programs, CEO Fesia Davenport said.

She noted the federal government already has notified the county Department of Public Health that more than $45 million in previously awarded COVD-19 grants intended to last through July of 2026 were being rescinded. The cuts are being challenged in court.

The January wildfires also are expected to cost the county at least $2 billion, mostly from cleanup and lost property tax revenues.

“We do expect FEMA reimbursement for some of the county’s losses. But those reimbursements can take years. So we will be on the hook to cover those expenses ourselves in the meantime,” Davenport said Tuesday.

She said a day earlier in a briefing to reporters that property tax revenues already were falling. Property sales tax revenue is forecast to drop to 233.9 million in 2025-26, from $450 million in 2022-23, because of a 41% decline in home sales in L.A. County since 2021.

“We are in uncharted territory with these simultaneous pressures on our budget,” Davenport said.

Firefighters and lifeguards rally outside of the Board of Supervisors meeting.

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Measure A funding

Despite the constraints, the budget is committed to sustaining the county’s essential safety net responsibilities, officials said.

The budget reflects the passage of Measure A — the voter-approved half-cent sales tax that replaced Measure H — which has already started to bring “an enhanced stream of funding” into the entire L.A. region to address homelessness, the CEO said in a news release.

The nearly $1.1 billion in projected Measure A revenues in this budget will be shared by the county's partners. It is expected to be distributed as follows:

• $382.8 million will go to the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency.
• $32.1 million will go to the Los Angeles County Development Authority.
• $96.3 million will go to local cities through the Local Solutions Fund. 
• And more than $500 million will go to the county’s own comprehensive homelessness services.

The budget also calls for spending $287.7 million for Care First and Community Investment, reflecting the board’s commitment to set aside 10% of locally generated unrestricted revenues annually to support social programs designed to keep at-risk people from going to jail.

The total Care First funding available for investment in communities and alternatives to incarceration is $571.6 million, including one-time unspent funds from previous years, according to the county.

Members of California Native Vote Project outside the supervisors meeting.

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In addition, the budget calls for adding six psychiatric mobile response teams to the 72 already in place. The teams provide non-law-enforcement-based mobile crisis response for people experiencing psychiatric emergencies.

“We’re still taking care of the safety net obligations that a county has,” Hahn said. “We’re still in good shape.”

Pressed about what services would be cut as a result of the 3% reduction in spending, the supervisor said she is confident departments would “get creative.”

“I think they’re going to do everything they can to not curtail services ... maybe they’ll just postpone certain things or defer certain things,” she said.

The proposed budget includes nearly $12 million to ramp up Measure G — the voter approved measure to expand the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members, create a countywide elected mayor position, and create a county Ethics Commission.

The budget also allocates funding for the Governance Reform Task Force that will guide Measure G efforts.

Home-care workers protested proposed cuts at Tuesday's meeting.

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Maria Diaz, a home-care provider, attended the supervisors meeting with her union SEIU 2015.

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What’s next?

On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors heard public testimony from more than four dozen people, including members of the home-care workers union. They warned supervisors against balancing the budget on the backs of the county’s low-wage workers.

Criminal justice advocates urged the supervisors to shift money away from law enforcement and into more social programs.

Further public hearings on the budget will be scheduled for next month.

An estimated 26,000 children who entered the U.S. without parents or guardians are expected to be left without independent legal representation as soon as Monday, according to lawyers who help represent them.

For more than two decades, the U.S. has been required by law to protect children who cross the border alone, because of fears that they could be easily exploited, abused or trafficked. After children cross the border unaccompanied, they are typically transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). A network of nearly 100 legal groups helps provide children who arrive in ORR custody with legal services, funded by Congress.

But in November, ORR stopped paying for those legal services, after lawyers declined to provide the agency with confidential information it had requested about the children. The attorneys say that information is covered by attorney-client privilege.

"The government is withholding payment for work that has already been performed in order to extract confidential information about kids, information the government has no right to," Acacia Center for Justice, the nonprofit that manages the legal services contract with ORR, said in a statement on Thursday.

ORR did not renew the contract with the network of legal providers, which expired Friday.

Alexa Sendukas, an attorney at the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, one of the organizations that provides legal help to migrant children, said that come Monday, the children may have to represent themselves in court and that most who would have to do that would likely end up being deported.

"We know that without a lawyer, unaccompanied children win the right to stay in the United States less than 1% of the time," said Sendukas. "And they've come to the United States seeking safety and protection. And what this administration is asking us to do now is to turn our backs on them completely. And they will undoubtedly be sent to harmful, dangerous situations. And I worry some will be killed if they lose their lawyers."

A group of legal nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year asking a judge to order the government to pay them for what it is owed — some $65 million — and continue paying them for more services. After going more than eight months without pay from ORR, some legal service providers have had to reduce their staff.

"Due to the loss of funding for children's immigration work, ProBAR laid off more than 20% of its staff this week," Lauren Fisher Flores, the legal director of ProBAR, a project of the American Bar Association that provides legal services to children in ORR care, said in an emailed statement on July 31.

On July 29, Acacia received notice from the federal government that ORR was considering a new contract, potentially with different legal providers. But ORR did not share much more information.

"It is not clear who the new contractor will be. They have not answered the questions that we have put to them," said Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel of Acacia, in response to a question from NPR. "And so there remains a lot of uncertainty and a great deal of concern."

Neither ORR nor the White House responded to NPR's requests for comment about this story.

Almost 1,800 children were in ORR custody in June, according to agency data. ORR has a legal obligation based on a 2008 law to promptly match children with guardians, or "sponsors," in the U.S. who can take care of them. Those children were held in custody for an average of 194 days before being released to sponsors, which lawyers who represent the children say is unusually long and has been detrimental to the health and safety of the children.

For years, lawyers from the network have given presentations for children arriving in ORR care to inform them of their rights and screen them to determine which legal services they are eligible for. Children who are victims of trafficking or abuse, for example, are entitled to special protections. Some of the network's lawyers told NPR they will no longer be able to provide some of those services.

But some of the attorneys say they won't simply abandon the children, even though the contract has not been renewed and they have not been paid by ORR.

"We have an ethical responsibility. We can't just drop a case. If you have a hearing tomorrow, we can't just not show up because the government decided to stop paying us," said Mickey Donovan, the director of legal services at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. "So we'll be there in court on Monday, to introduce ourselves to kids and try to do what we can to prevent their deportation."

Copyright 2026 NPR

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired the biggest prize on the trade deadline market, getting two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night.

Skubal got the news during the Tigers’ 8-6 win over the Athletics and was emotional after the game as he prepared to leave the team that drafted him in 2018 and developed him into a star to join the two-time defending World Series champions.

“I’m excited to be a Dodger,” he said. “I’m excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row. That’s hard to do, so I’m so excited to be a part of that. But it’s a lot of different emotions. Definitely kind of a roller coaster a little bit.”

Skubal is the latest star to join the high-priced roster for the Dodgers that already has big-name players like Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Mookie Betts. If everyone is healthy, he could be part of a rotation with Ohtani, reigning World Series MVP Yamamoto, fellow two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. The Dodgers lead the majors with a 3.36 ERA from their starting pitchers and now add Skubal to the mix.

The Dodgers are in first place in the NL West and were already the favorites to become the first team to three-peat since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000 before adding Skubal. They began the season with a $323.3 million opening-day payroll for their 40-man roster and a $163.7 million tax for a $487.1 million total. They will pay Skubal about $9.5 million for the remainder of the season.

ESPN first reported the deal and said the Tigers would receive three minor league prospects in right-handers River Ryan and Brady Smith and outfielder Zyhir Hope.

Skubal is eligible for free agency after the World Series. He has a $32 million salary, a record total in arbitration, after the team offered $19 million, and is expected to sign a massive contract in the offseason.

The 29-year-old lefty said in July that it was his preference to finish the season with the Tigers and to compete for a World Series championship, which has eluded the franchise since 1984. Skubal took the loss in the decisive Game 5 of the division series against Cleveland in 2024 and then got a no-decision in a 15-inning loss to Seattle in Game 5 of the division series last year.

He said it was “very tough” to leave the Tigers having fallen short of the goal of winning a title.

“Ever since that ’24 Game 5, the failure that I experienced on the mound, I’ve used that as fuel to try and bring a World Series to the city of Detroit. I truly did,” he said. “That whole offseason, I’ve never been more motivated and then go in and we lose Game 5 again. That failure kind of sparks some more motivation, just to dig deeper and see how good you can truly be. The goal was always to win a World Series for the city, for the organization that took a chance on me. It’s tough. I love all those guys in there. They’re some of my best friends.”

Detroit planned to contend again this season, bolstering the Skubal-led rotation by giving two-time All-Star pitcher Framber Valdez a $115 million, three-year contract in free agency and retaining three-time All-Star infielder Gleyber Torres with a $22 million deal.

The Tigers, though, got off to a rough start and are currently 2 1/2 games out of the last wild-card spot in the American League.

“It’s crazy. Going into the season, this isn’t what I planned on doing,” Skubal said. “But circumstances change, situations change, and I’m very appreciative of everything the Tigers have done for me.”

They bounced back in June and most of July to get into playoff contention with Skubal leading a rotation and three All-Stars in the lineup: rookie infielder Kevin McGonigle, catcher Dillon Dingler and outfielder Riley Greene.

With a chance to possibly persuade management to keep Skubal by improving its playoff positioning, Detroit lost ground by dropping four of its last five games at home, including Skubal’s last start that was made even more memorable by a late-inning collapse.

The Tigers led Baltimore 7-0 after six innings Wednesday and lost 10-9 in 12 innings. Skubal started the game, recorded his 1,000th career strikeout and was cheered at every opportunity by a crowd of 34,406.

“I’ve watched this guy rise to the top of the sport,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s carried us a lot. I’ll forever be grateful that our paths crossed and the things that he did for this organization and for a couple of playoff teams. His presence, his work ethic, his example, his dominance. There’s so much to go through, it’s hard to capture in one quote or kind of one setting. But I’m very grateful that I was able to manage him for the time that I did.”

Skubal is 7-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 96 2/3 innings. He is 61-42 with a 3.04 ERA over seven seasons, all in Detroit. In two postseasons, Skubal is 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA in six starts.

Skubal had a minimally invasive surgery on May 6 to remove a loose body from his pitching elbow and returned to pitch on June 13.

“The way the surgery went is exactly how it was supposed to go,” he said in July.

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this report

Yoko Ono is having her first solo retrospective in Southern California, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, at The Broad in downtown Los Angeles.

As part of the survey of her career, a special tribute concert, Yoko Only, featuring artists inspired by Ono, including Yo La Tengo, Tune-Yards and other musicians spanning genres and generations is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 8.

If you only know Yoko Ono because of that whole Beatles thing ...

The 93-year-old Ono has been a major avant-garde art figure since the 1960s. In one of her most famous works, long considered a cornerstone of feminist art, Ono sat on stage as audience members cut away pieces of her clothing.

Her experimentation spills over into music

In the late 1960s, Ono formed a band of sorts with John Lennon, originally as a conceptual art piece for a show. The Plastic Ono Band featured a rotating cast of members including some jaw-dropping names: Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon.

Plastic Ono Band

On Dec. 11, 1970, both Ono and Lennon released their respective debut solo albums — John Lennon/Plastic Ono Ban and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band.

Lennon's version — musically stripped down and lyrically raw — was lauded by critics at the time.

Ono's version — where vocal experimentation took center stage — was panned. Here's what music writer Marissa Lorusso said of the album for NPR in 2021.

In the decades since its release, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band has found new appreciation, particularly among musicians the likes of Kim Gordon and Yuka Honda.

'Yoko Only'

Honda, half of the 1990s New York duo Cibo Matto, is the tribute concert's guest curator.

"Everyone from Tune-Yards to Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof to Sylvan Esso, Yo La Tengo, Rufus Wainwright — they all cite Yoko as a major influence on them as artists," said Ed Patuto, The Broad's director of audience engagement, who reached out to ask Honda to participate.

"Her music and her lyrics oftentimes have that poeticism. Yuka has done arrangements that really do this work justice," Patuto continued. "We're gonna introduce Angelenos to Yoko the musical composer."

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post

More than 260 city employees could be laid off and over 200 more vacant positions could be cut in departments ranging from fire and police to homeless services in order to close a $58 million budget gap the city faces next year, according to a budget proposal from Long Beach City Manager Tom Modica released on Thursday.

The $4 billion spending plan, which covers the 2026-27 fiscal year, includes some new spending, including a 12-person High Crime Focus Team and expanded real-time crime center in the Police Department, permanent funding for Fire Engine 17 near Stearns Park, money for replacing traffic signs and sprucing up medians, investments in the city’s police crime lab and a $6.5 million helicopter paid for using forfeited assets and a law enforcement grant.

But the cuts outsize the gains. Layoffs could claim 4% of the city’s nearly 6,000-person workforce, with additional cuts at libraries, parks and the city’s homeless services hub as Long Beach copes with rising personnel costs, soaring legal payouts, a clawback of federal grants and a slowdown in the local economy that has stifled tax revenue.

A range of positions are set to be cut, spanning more than a dozen departments or offices, from managerial roles to rank-and-file employees. It includes fire captains and police lieutenants, analysts and clerks, crossing guards, librarians and investigators, among others. Officials have said the impact will be felt citywide, in the government’s ability to analyze and respond to emerging issues.

A city spokesman noted that police and fire employees losing their jobs will be transferred to open roles elsewhere in the departments, including in a new patrol beat specific to the shoreline. Many other employees will not be as lucky.

How we got here

This is the first time Long Beach has proposed layoffs for employees paid out of its general fund in nearly six years. Dozens of Health Department jobs were cut in 2024, but those positions were tied specifically to the loss of state grant funding and the conclusion of Long Beach Recovery Act pandemic aid.

The past couple of budgets relied on reserve cash to cover their shortfalls and delay layoffs — $7.8 million in fiscal year 2025 and $5.8 million in fiscal year 2024, the latter pulled from COVID recovery funds. But officials say that strategy was short-term and unsustainable.

The city already pulled $27 million from four reserve accounts to close out the current fiscal year, exhausting its operating reserves and taking $16.5 million from its $50.1 million emergency reserve — money set aside specifically for natural disasters and unforeseen crises.

The moves would save $55.9 million, allowing the city to add $9.8 million back to reserves. It currently has only $33.6 million in reserves.

What's on the chopping block

In public safety, the city proposed shutting down Fire Engine 14, which operates out of the station near Colorado Lagoon, to save $3.8 million, citing data showing it responds to the fewest fire calls in the city and 87% of calls received are for paramedics. Officials also proposed converting one engine from permanent staffing to cheaper overtime; in the Police Department, they suggest eliminating 17 vacant patrol officer positions, cutting $2.68 million in police overtime, consolidating part of financial crimes into property crimes, and eliminating 18 investigator roles.

Pressed by the loss of $11 million in county, state and federal funding, the Health Department faces heavy losses, including 79 positions cut — including eight positions within the city homelessness bureau. The reductions will affect programs and agencies that handle medical shuttle services, weekend homelessness outreach, one of the city’s two mobile homeless outreach centers, workforce development and homelessness prevention.

If approved, the proposed budget would also cut more than half of its motel voucher shelter rooms (from 40 to 15) and offer rapid rehousing assistance to 45 fewer households. City leaders said the cuts are targeted to keep all municipal shelter beds open, a crucial need as Long Beach struggles to reduce local homelessness, which rose by 3.7% in the past year.

Programs and services citywide would also see reductions. Hours and days at five city libraries — Bayshore, Burnett, El Dorado, Harte and Michelle Obama — would be cut to five days a week under reduced hours. Teen programming at Chavez Park, summer swim classes at Jordan and Millikan high schools, and the city’s involvement with the afterschool WRAP program are all expected to be eliminated.

An additional 25 positions would be cut by contracting out services for parking collections, school crossing guards and the city’s reprographics office. To offset administrative cuts in Public Works, parking meters would be installed around City Hall, Lincoln Park, the courthouse and Ocean Boulevard, and citywide parking rates would rise from $2 to $3 an hour, with the revenue redirected to street light repairs, solar conversions, weed abatement and median upkeep.

Several departments would also see agencies consolidated, which officials say is part of a necessary restructuring to focus on emerging issues like traffic safety and community health.

What’s next

Workers were informed of potential layoffs as early as Thursday morning. Civil service rules allow for employees with more experience to bump those with fewer years on the job, meaning workers can move within or across departments, displacing colleagues.

The plan is not finalized yet. Going forward, the City Council will deliberate the budget through a series of public meetings, town hall forums and study sessions until final approval, typically at the end of September.

The earliest potential adjustments came Thursday, during Mayor Rex Richardson’s proposed version of the budget that would restore several programs and reinstate 70 positions.

For example, Richardson said he wants to undo the plan for a rotating engine; keep four of the 17 eliminated police patrol positions and two Quality of Life officers, while reinstating $400,000 for officers’ overtime pay; preserve youth programs, and homelessness programs; add new disease prevention and nursing positions; and continue to fund the Office of Equity position that oversees the city’s deportation defense fund while also adding more money to its account. The defense fund currently has $548,000.

Funding, he explained, could come from a line of new sources, like the $7 million to $8 million expected annually from the voter-approved county Measure ER, an updated cost-recovery agreement with the Port of Long Beach for fire services adding $5.9 million and $1.5 million saved from not holding a general election because races were already decided in the June primary.

Sparing no detail on the starkness of the economic picture, officials say it figures to get worse before it gets better. After a $27.3 million deficit expected next year, officials are confident they will have consecutive years of meager surpluses.

Despite the headwinds, they say, Long Beach is on solid footing, with a 17.5% drop in overall crime, with paramedics responding 30 seconds faster than they did last year, with 12% more city shelter beds, thousands of new, high-paying aerospace jobs, and work underway on new streets, bridges — and a very expensive pool — as part of a billion-dollar infrastructure plan ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

The city also welcomed a new amphitheater and an independent baseball team in the past year, and it continues to draw $2 billion in tourism and economic impact — outpacing San Diego, Anaheim, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco in key hotel use and visitor metrics.

By following the city’s plans, Richardson said Long Beach would achieve a structural surplus by 2028 — the first in more than a decade.

“Our responsibility today is not only to today’s budget, it’s to the long-term financial health of our city and to the thousands of employees who depend on a stable and sustainable organization,” Richardson said. “Our employees deserve to be more than temporary fixes that simply postpone difficult decisions. They deserve a city with a stable financial future. That’s why I believe we have to stay the course.”