Long Beach City Council Adopts Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

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PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA - On Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, the Long Beach City Council voted to adopt the City of Long Beach's $3.6 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 25). The Adopted FY 25 Budget maintains current services while utilizing both one-time and structural resources in a strategic and fiscally prudent way that avoids adding to the General Fund structural shortfall previously projected at the start of the budget development process. These initiatives aim to shape a future where all of the city's diverse community members have a safe, clean, and healthy place to live, work and thrive.

"The C.O.R.E. Four Budget reflects our commitment to a safe, healthy and thriving Long Beach - it is a blueprint for growth, opportunity, sustainability and delivering quality services," said Mayor Rex Richardson. "By thoughtfully adapting to this changing landscape of how we fund core services, we are ensuring that Long Beach can continue to address immediate needs while securing the city's long-term financial stability."

Long Beach is a full-service city organization and prides itself on providing a variety of resources and services to the community, including the provision and improvement of affordable housing; support for economic development and business assistance; the overall continuum of public safety and emergency medical response; a comprehensive, interdepartmental approach to addressing homelessness; maintenance of safe, clean and accessible parks and facilities; and support for and advancements in infrastructure and livability improvements. The Adopted FY 25 Budget maintains these services and takes action to address the City's most urgent one-time and structural needs for select service priority areas such as the continuation of certain programs currently funded with one-time Long Beach Recovery Act Funding like Be S.A.F.E. (Summer Activities in a Friendly Environment), BizCare, Language Access, and Re-Entry Programs.

"Our newly adopted Fiscal Year 25 Budget is possible due to the dedication and unwavering support of the Mayor, City Council, the Budget Oversight Committee and our City departments," said City Manager Tom Monica. "I would like thank all of them for their collective effort resulting in a robust and balanced budget that will strengthen our community."

The new investments made in the Adopted FY 25 Budget take into consideration priorities from the Long Beach City Council and key areas identified in the Long Beach Strategic Vision 2030 as well as community feedback from residents received during the budget development and review process throughout the year.

The Adopted FY 25 Budget includes the following:

Housing and Homelessness
While the City has made significant progress in its effort to address the issues of affordable housing and homelessness, including increased affordable housing production and a decline in people experiencing homelessness for the first time in seven years, the City remains steadfast in its commitment to identify and leverage additional funding streams and implement more programs, services and opportunities to address them. The budget supports and enhances existing services with one-time investments including:

• $545,048 of grant funding to implement an Office of Homeless Strategy and Partnerships within the Office of the City Manager to provide critical support and implementation of the ongoing planning and partnerships related to the Homelessness Strategic Plan Update, streamline the City's homelessness response and increase coordination efforts across City departments.
• One-time funding of $375,000 to continue support of the StayHoused Los Angeles Tenant Assistance Program, bringing the total to $1.05 million funds available for the program in FY 25.
• One-time funding of $500,000, bringing the total to $1.1 million funds available, for the Long Beach Justice Fund in FY 25.
• Structurally adding a lead housing policy analyst to support increased planning efforts around housing and homelessness.
• One-time funding of $82,481 to purchase a vehicle and increase budget for ongoing maintenance to service Homeless Services facility sites.
• Adding two structural positions to support Homeless Response Services and one-time funding of $370,996 to purchase a fleet vehicle truck for targeted trash removal in homeless encampments.

Public Safety
The City is committed to safeguarding the safety and wellbeing of the Long Beach community. The budget supports existing as well as new, innovative initiatives to achieve a variety of public safety priorities including:

• One-time funding of $200,000 to support the Long Beach Violence Prevention Initiative.
• One-time funding of $1.3 million for High Crime Focus Team to proactively address violent crime citywide by taking illegal guns off the streets, apprehend known suspects, and enhance overall safety through measurable and increased community engagement, education and collaborative enforcement.
• Increasing funding for emergency medical equipment, fire station utility expenses and fire station maintenance and repair costs for the Long Beach Fire Department.
• One-time funding of $500,000 to support a peak load Ambulance Unit pilot program.
• One-time funding of $2.1 million to operate the Fire Recruit Academy 2025A class of 50 recruits.
• Adding a firefighter to the Arson Investigation Unit to enhance the capacity of the existing Arson Investigation Unit and its response to criminal arson incidents and investigations.
• Create a new Professional Standards Division in the Fire Department in the amount of $239,958 to investigate allegations of misconduct and providing department-wide professional standards training, reporting and accountability metrics to better equitably and justly serve the community.

Economic Opportunity, Equity and Resiliency
Fostering a culture of equitable business opportunities and economic development continues to be a key priority for the City. The Adopted Budget includes new investments to support business and economic growth community-wide as part of the Grow Long Beach Initiative, including:

• Structurally adding four positions for the BizCare Program to continue operations beyond Long Beach Recovery Act funding.
• Adding a position to coordinate and support the City's 2028 Olympics preparation efforts and citywide grants.
• Creating a Business Services Equity Officer to focus on revenue recovery performance with data analytics and audits.
• One-time funding of $562,500 to complete a visioning study for the Downtown Shoreline Plan which will shape the Downtown Shoreline as a regional amenity and guide plans to create a world-class waterfront.
• One-time funding of $100,000 to continue the Visual Improvement Program Grants to support local small businesses impacted by property crimes and vandalism.

Education
Investing in Long Beach youth and providing resources, opportunities and support for education and career pathways is a priority for the City. The Adopted Budget supports the following investments including:

• One-time Measure US funding of $30,000 to support the City's Youth Festival and $400,942 community-based grants and incentives around youth development.
• Rename Library Services to Library, Arts and Culture Department to better reflect the Library's expansive operations and community offerings.
• Add a structural position to perform in-house services in the Library, Arts and Culture Department, including construction projects and facility maintenance.
• Add $203,687 to support safety measures at Long Beach Public Library locations, with an emphasis on the Mark Twain Neighborhood branch.

Mobility, Equitable Placemaking and Reimagining the Public Right of Way
Investing in and prioritizing enhancements in citywide infrastructure and maintenance needs remain a critical priority. The Adopted Budget supports opportunities through the General Fund as well as two major avenues, Measure A and the FY 25 CIP, through the following:

• Adding 10 positions to contract-in a concrete program which will allow City staff to develop a specialization in demolition, forming, placement and finishing of concrete and address concrete work throughout the city in a timely and efficient manner.
• One-time funding of $100,000 to support Beach Streets Open Streets event in West Long Beach.
• One-time funding of $500,000 for transportation safety improvements.
• Adding four positions for additional parking enforcement citywide, including night shift enforcement, to deter illegal parking.
• Creating a new in-house Bike Share Program in the Public Works Department for management and operation of over 1,400 publicly shared bikes across 100 bike share hubs, which is expanding to encompass more locations and provide e-bike options.

Climate and Environmental Sustainability
Stewarding the City's environmental resources, combating the consequences of climate change and supporting various local sustainability practices are all major priorities for the City. Key investments in the Adopted Budget include:

• Adding a Field Work Coordinator in the Office of Climate Action and Sustainability.
• Adding a position to oversee the Advanced Clean Fleets project to meet compliance requirements mandated by the California Air Resources Board.
• Utilize one-time AB 32 Cap and Trade proceeds of $500,000 to replace two street tree bucket trucks with electric models and $4.8 million to address the Climate Action Plan's greenhouse gas emission reduction actions.
• Establish a four-phase approach and explore funding opportunities to address significant electric vehicle charging infrastructure needs to transition to zero-emission vehicles Citywide.

Health, Behavior and Wellness
The City is committed to fostering opportunities for residents across Long Beach to achieve optimal health and quality of life, which includes residents' safety and wellbeing. The Budget makes additional investments to foster a safer environment for all, including:

• Adding a position to the Beach Clean-up Crew for $96,825 and one-time funding of $80,980 to purchase a barber surf rake to support the Beach Clean-up Crew and increase the frequency of the City's beachfront waterline clean-up.
• Adding two structural positions to support the Health Equity Program.
• Structurally adding two positions to support the Sidewalk Vending Program.

Digital Inclusion and Technology
Advancing innovative solutions to civic challenges through community collaborations and the implementation of emerging technologies in City practices continues to be a priority. The City will continue to support these priorities, along with enhancing cyber security, through:

• Adding $1 million to enhance cybersecurity and information technology infrastructure through the use of cybersecurity experts, training, testing, data loss prevention tools, and more.
• One-time funding of $700,000 to redesign, re-platform and rehost the public facing website.

Our Government
The City continues to invest in and prioritize opportunities that support strong recruitment and retention efforts and employee benefits, as well as investments in supporting the City organization so that it can continue to make positive contributions to the community. Select enhancements and new investments in the City of Long Beach government include:

• Adding a position to support quantitative and qualitative data analysis and reporting of multiple Citywide revenue streams.
• One-time funding of $500,000 and structurally adding $45,000 for contractual services to assist with the backlog of job classification and compensation studies.
• One-time funding of $50,000 to support ongoing racial equity training, including the design and implementation of programs, policies and services using an equity lens.
• One-time funding of $350,000 to update the Go Long Beach application to improve the user interface and functionality of the application.
• Adding two positions to serve as City Council liaisons in the Public Works and Community Development Departments to increase responsiveness, consistency, quicker turnaround and more proactive communication.
• Increasing structural funding by $294,222 to support the Citywide Language Access Program interpretation and translation services for City meetings and events, document translations and over-the-phone translation services.

Opportunities and Innovations
In addition to fiscal investments, the City is also prioritizing ways to streamline the inner workings of City processes, procedures and names, including:

• Initiate significant and focused effort on growing the City's revenue base in line with the Mayor's Grow Long Beach Initiative to bring new revenue sources for the City and move away from oil related revenues.

FY 25 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)
The FY 25 CIP was developed by the Department of Public Works, in conjunction with the Financial Management Department and Office of the City Manager, along with input incorporated from public workshops and presentations to community groups and local elected officials and was planned utilizing the City's five-year (FY 23 - FY 27) Elevate '28 Infrastructure Investment Plan. This ensures that the limited resources available fund priority projects, while at the same time, maintains the City's existing infrastructure and minimizes future replacement costs.

The FY 25 CIP is $221.8 million, excluding the Harbor Department, from various sources. Included in the FY 25 CIP is nearly $12.5 million from Measure A funds dedicated to enhancing the City's aging infrastructure with an additional $65.5 million from the Measure A bond program, which are also included in the Elevate '28 Infrastructure Plan. The FY 25 CIP Budget includes:

• $2 million in Airport runway and terminal improvements.
• Nearly $9 million for various beach improvements including seawall, pier, lagoon and wetlands.
• $102 million in mobility and safety improvements.
• Nearly $20 million in park improvements including $4.3 million to acquire and develop future park land.
• $12.8 million in public facility improvements.

Elevate '28
In FY 24, the City launched the Elevate '28 Infrastructure Investment Plan, which built upon the initial FY 23 - FY 27 five-year CIP and includes transformative infrastructure investments across over 180 unique projects, making it the City's largest infrastructure investment plan to date. The Elevate '28 plan allows the City to focus received and anticipated infrastructure funding on priority projects throughout a five-year period. The plan also serves as a guiding document throughout each annual proposed CIP development.

Elevate '28 supports the revitalization of the City's infrastructure; prepare Long Beach to serve as a major Venue City for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games; invest in the 10-year community investment plan, the Westside Promise; and continue to enhance City parks, major corridors and visitor-serving areas to improve quality of life for community members for generations to come. As of FY 25, the five-year plan is supported with $306 million of Measure A funds and $622 million from other funding sources for a total of $928 million.

Adopted Mayoral Recommendations
Additional one-time funding recommended by the Mayor and adopted in the FY 25 Budget include:

• One-time funding of $550,000 to expand public safety measures citywide through Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design initiatives such as landscaping and sustainable neighborhood lighting, programmatic interventions to reduce gun violence, and public education and training on hate speech and hate crime awareness, prevention and response.
• Establishing a new Signature Projects Division in the Community Development Department to streamline major city development projects such as the redevelopment of Queen Mary Island and Pier H, the Long Beach Convention Center, Shoreline Drive and Alamitos Bay.
• Creating a new Revenue Innovation, Strategy and Enhancement Division in the Economic Development Department to better leverage public assets such as the Queen Mary, the Convention Center, Catalina Landing and Shoreline Marina to pursue new revenue generating and business development opportunities for the city.
• Policy direction to restructure and modernize the Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation Network as the "Long Beach Workforce Innovation Network" to align its mission and programs with the City's Grow Long Beach Initiative, placing a greater focus on connecting residents to employment opportunities in the new economy and the city's public workforce.
• One-time funding of $550,000 to expand the City's marketing, tourism and advertising efforts, develop an Entertainment Strategic Plan to coordinate planning and marketing strategies for the anticipated public amphitheater and key music and performing arts venues, and archiving the City's historic role in hosting many sporting events for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
• Establishing a new Office of Protocols responsible for supporting foreign relations efforts including sister city initiatives, dignitary visits, port related international engagements, and preparations for the 2028 Olympics to advance economic development opportunities for the city.
• One-time funding of $500,000 to support small businesses and Business Improvement Districts through enhanced clean and safety activations, green space enhancements, and business support and development, and to continue the Level Up LB: Extreme Small Business Makeover Program, which provides intensive support to local small and diverse businesses.
• Raising the total funding for the Youth Fund to $1.15 million to support the City's youth participatory budgeting process and increasing investments in citywide youth arts education and arts equity initiatives.
• One-time funding of $250,000 to stabilize the early care and education sector, expand access to quality childcare through tuition assistance, and provide targeted outreach and enrollment support to reduce barriers to families seeking to reenter the workforce.
• Nearly $7 million in one-time funding to support facility energy efficiency upgrades and sustainability enhancements at public parks, procure a new trash interceptor barge in the Los Angeles River to improve water quality, support environmental streetscape and open space development in West Long Beach, extend the service period and service area of the Long Beach Circuit to increase mobility options, and grow Long Beach's urban canopy to reach 100,000 trees by 2026.

The Adopted Budget also includes the following one-time General Fund investments and other changes recommended by the Budget Oversight Committee and approved by the entire City Council, including:

• $130,000 to support priority district initiatives for infrastructure improvement projects and improve community services engagement, bringing the proposed FY 25 budget of $320,000 to $450,000, with $50,000 designated specifically for funding to support youth-specific programs and activities in the Mayor's Office and Council District offices.
• $150,000 to provide 30 small grants to community members and organizations to support local projects that enhance neighborhood development and cohesion.
• $300,000 to continue supporting the Safe Passage Program and Community Activation through the end of the 2024-2025 school year, ensuring safe transit routes for residents, particularly for children traveling to and from school, and to promote community engagement activities.
• $25,000 to launch a pilot program that funds the installation of artistic window wraps on vacant or underutilized storefronts to improve aesthetic appeal and deter vandalism.
• $250,000 to assist the beautification and improvement of street medians throughout the city, enhancing safety and aesthetics.
• $300,000 for youth programming, with a focus on supporting children and their families, focusing on advancing peace and preventing violence.
• $300,000 to address encampment and illegal dumping clean-ups.
• $115,714 for three new Paramedic Assessment Units for a six-month pilot program.
• $100,000 for increased safety developments and improvements at the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library garden area.
• $60,000 to support the Citizen's Advisory Commission on Disabilities efforts towards the Disability Data and Community Survey that will help bridge the disability data gap in Long Beach, critical for better understanding and addressing the existing and emerging needs of the local disability community, especially as the City prepares for the LA28 Paralympic Games.
• $50,000 for the inception of activities, such as community engagement efforts, promotional initiatives, and early-stage programming of the proposed Design District in Downtown Long Beach that will be a critical step toward fostering innovation, creativity and economic vitality in the Downtown area.
• $190,263 to support a Communicable Disease Investigator and an Operations Support Specialist in the Health and Human Services Department through FY 25, due to the expiration of grants, loss of State funding and conclusion of the Long Beach Recovery Act funding.
• Funding for a grant match to apply for Proposition 1 funding that will focus on mental health design services for site plans and $250,000 to implement additional traffic calming strategies, which were identified as high priority projects to be considered for one-time funding using any FY 24 year-end surplus resources if available
• One-time funds of $92,174 ($86,174 in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund and $6,000 in the Tidelands Operating Fund), bringing the total increase to $215,434 for the Meet Long Beach convention and tourism marketing contract. With this increase, the total contract amount will be $4.8 million.
• Maintaining the current cultivation cannabis tax rate at $13.09 through Oct. 1, 2025. The cultivation tax rate is subject to an automatic increase on Oct. 1, 2024, per the Consumer Price Index calculator, without City Council direction.
• Adding structural funds of $500,000 to support contractor and subcontractor verification for additional wage protection and labor standards.
• Adding structural funding of $564,079 and one-time funds of $274,355 in the General Fund for additional Community Services Assistants in the Police Department to reduce response times for Priority 3, non-violent calls for service, and free up Patrol Officers to respond to higher priority calls, offset by department savings.

The Adopted Budget took into consideration resident feedback garnered through various community engagement opportunities throughout the budget development process. At the start of 2024, Long Beach residents had the opportunity to provide their feedback prior to the development of the Proposed FY 25 Budget through one of four in-person meetings, a virtual meeting, and also through a Budget Priority Survey. After the proposed budget was introduced, four additional in-person meetings and one virtual meetings were held. Community members were also able to provide input by completing a Digital Budget Comment Card that was available in English, Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog. The community feedback from this second round of engagement efforts was transmitted to the City Council in a Sept. 5, 2024, memo.

While the City has worked diligently to avoid adding to the structural shortfall, the City still faces a five-year $61.5 million General Fund shortfall due to a variety of factors, including the absence of sufficient core revenue growth in the General Fund and the completion of Long Beach Recovery Act funds. As such, the City will continue to maintain healthy fiscal habits and will continue to identify alternative, progressive revenue streams that yield significant new revenues so that the City can continue to provide critical core public services to the community.

More information about the Adopted Budget is available at longbeach.gov/fy25. The City's budget is developed by the Department of Financial Management, which oversees the financial and fleet services operations of the City, including an over $3.6 billion annual budget, serves as a financial adviser to the City Manager and City Council, and ensures the City's timely and accurate financial reporting, full transparency and accountability, and integrity.

About the City of Long Beach
Long Beach is nestled along the Southern California coast and home to approximately 466,000 people. As an award-winning full-service charter city, Long Beach offers the amenities of a metropolitan city while maintaining a strong sense of individual and diverse neighborhoods, culture and community. With a bustling downtown and over six miles of scenic beaches, Long Beach is a renowned tourist and business destination and home to the iconic Queen Mary, nationally recognized Aquarium of the Pacific and Long Beach Airport, award-winning Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center and world-class Port of Long Beach.

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