Mayor Bass Demanded $50M in Cuts to the LAFD on Jan 6

A leaked internal LAFD memo informed fire chiefs in the jurisdiction that Bass wanted cuts of close to $50 million in this budget cycle.

That is in addition to the $17 million that Bass had already cut out of their resources. It would have forced the closure of more than a dozen fire stations. Bass, who has a history as a revolutionary communist, demanded it just days before devastating wildfires began breaking out in Los Angeles and before the water ran out.

The Daily Mail has pictures of the memo.

The text of the first bullet point in the memo:

The LAFD is still going through a FY2024/2025 $48.8 million budget reduction exercise with the CAO. The Fire Chief, Board of Fire Commissioners, COA, and UFLAC are steadfast in their message of defending what resources we currently have in place. The only way to provide a cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations (not resources, fire stations); this equates to at least one fire station per City Council District. The details of this plan have not yet been developed. This is a worst-case scenario and is NOT happening yet. The Fire Chief will have a “Chat with the Chief” webinar next week to clarify the situation and the budget.

The LAFD has already had its budget slashed so much that they can’t conduct necessary maintenance tasks on its own equipment and on infrastructure for fighting fires.

One LAFD veteran told the Daily Mail that they don’t even have the budget to test hydrants any longer and that Bass has been draining those resources to fund homeless programs:

“They’re trying to allocate more money for the homeless, and they need to start taking from everybody.”

‘But we already exhausted our budget. It’s already tapped. That’s why they cut the fire academy in half, so they could save more money. That’s why we’re not testing if hydrants work anymore. We’re doing everything we can to save money.

[…]

‘We have fire engines we can’t get parts for. When one breaks down, we strip it of parts to put on other fire engines because we can’t buy any more parts.

This is so insane. You can’t blame this on climate change. You can blame it on the people in charge.

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