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LA County's final $54.2 billion budget, homeless families, and quake readiness · LA County

• 0:06
  Maya: On this week's episode: the Board of Supervisors makes the county's budget final, a push to stop homeless families from being shuffled between motel rooms, and a look at how ready the county is for a major earthquake.
• 0:22
  Maya: Five supervisors, nearly ten million people. Here's your weekly debrief.
• 0:28
  Maya: Tuesday's Board meeting opened with a moment of silence for the five people killed in Chatsworth last month. Two died in the Metro bus crash, and three in the news helicopter crash that followed. At the end of the day the Board adjourned in their memory.
• 0:43
  Theo: Later that morning the Board honored the Medical Examiner's department for getting its full national accreditation back. It lost that accreditation in 2016.
• 0:51
  Maya: A supervisor said the department had worked for about ten years to regain it. The standards include examining ninety percent of cases within seventy-two hours, and closing ninety percent within ninety days.
• 1:01
  Theo: Tuesday was also the last step of a three-step process. The county's budget starts as a recommended budget in April and becomes the adopted budget in June. Then there's a supplemental budget in the fall, and that's the final one.
• 1:14
  Maya: And that's where we'll start.
• 1:16
  Maya: This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes.
• 1:26
  Maya: Our top story: the county's final budget. On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors adopted the last round of changes that make the budget for twenty twenty-six, twenty-seven final. Each budget item that came to a roll call passed five to nothing.
• 1:41
  Theo: So how big is it?
• 1:43
  Maya: Chief Executive Officer Joseph Nicchitta put it at fifty-four point two billion dollars. That's three point nine billion more than the June budget, and most of the increase is one-time money. The Board also heard that only forty-five point two million dollars of the new spending is ongoing local money it can use freely.
• 2:02
  Theo: Where does the money go?
• 2:04
  Maya: It fully pays the county's second yearly payment of one point two billion dollars on settlements of childhood sexual assault claims, under the state law known as A B two eighteen. The Board heard that roughly six thousand new claims are still unsettled. The budget also moves three hundred ninety-one point one million dollars out of lower-priority accounts. The Board was told those shifts cut internal costs, not programs the public uses.
• 2:29
  Theo: What about county jobs?
• 2:30
  Maya: Budgeted positions fall by a net two hundred fifty, to one hundred fifteen thousand, four hundred thirty-three. The CEO said the biggest reduction was in Public Health, a net one hundred ninety-five positions, all of them vacant. The hiring freeze continues, and it comes up for another look starting in November.
• 2:48
  Theo: Was there anything on the fires, or on the jails?
• 2:52
  Maya: The Board heard that nineteen months after the January twenty twenty-five fires, the county still hasn't received any federal money for community recovery. A twenty million dollar startup loan was recommended for the new disaster recovery rebuild authority. The budget sets aside fifteen and a half million dollars for closing Men's Central Jail. A county committee has recommended another eleven million, which the CEO said will reach the Board in October.
• 3:16
  Theo: Were there warnings about the years ahead?
• 3:19
  Maya: A supervisor warned that the public hospital system could lose an estimated six hundred sixty million dollars or more in federal revenue under the federal law known as H R one. Health Services is running an operating deficit of two hundred ninety-seven point four million dollars, and when a supervisor asked how long its reserves could cover that, the Board was told the department expects to run out during fiscal year twenty twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Lindsey Horvath, the Third District supervisor, asked what's being done to make the Sheriff's Department more efficient. The Board heard that the department ended the year a hundred and six million dollars short.
• 3:56
  Theo: And what did the public say?
• 3:58
  Maya: More than sixty people signed up, and the Board heard about an hour of public comment. The largest group, about a dozen people from worker centers, asked for bridge funding so the Public Health Councils program can continue past November without a gap. About ten speakers, many from youth justice groups, opposed growing the probation budget. Others asked for a guaranteed basic income pilot for elderly undocumented immigrants, and for full funding of Represent L A, the immigrant legal defense program.
• 4:29
  Maya: Next, families experiencing homelessness, and the motel rooms they're placed in.
• 4:33
  Theo: What's the problem?
• 4:34
  Maya: Families on motel vouchers have been made to check out, change rooms, or register again, so that they don't establish tenancy rights. During the discussion, a speaker described meeting a family of six on a bus who kept having to move between hotels because of those rules.
• 4:51
  Theo: Is that something the county requires?
• 4:53
  Maya: A supervisor asked that same question. The Board heard that a state law passed a few years ago keeps motel stays paid for by someone else from creating tenancy, and that motel owners, service providers, and police need to be told about it. The county's homeless services department can also put that rule into county policy and its contracts.
• 5:15
  Theo: So what does the motion do?
• 5:17
  Maya: It comes from Janice Hahn, the Fourth District supervisor, and Holly Mitchell, the Second District supervisor. It asks the department and its partners to review how families are referred for help and how they qualify. That covers families who are doubled up with others, unsheltered, or living with several generations together, and parents whose children are staying with relatives. It also asks whether small families can be matched to available smaller units, so they spend less time in interim housing. Under the revised version, County Counsel will give the Board a confidential legal analysis of the motel practices, and the department has sixty days to report back.
• 5:56
  Theo: Did anything else come up?
• 5:58
  Maya: A supervisor raised concerns about people being offered beds far from their home communities. The homeless services director said a limit in the data system keeps people's locations hidden when beds are matched, and expects a fix within weeks. Horvath said the motel problem shows the gap between passing a policy and putting it into practice. About ten speakers, most of them callers, spoke in support. The motion passed four to nothing. Board Chair Hilda Solis, the First District supervisor, had left the dais.
• 6:31
  Maya: Our third story is earthquakes. Kathryn Barger, the Fifth District supervisor, asked for a report on how ready the county is for a major one.
• 6:40
  Theo: Who gave the report?
• 6:42
  Maya: County emergency management, Public Works, Fire, the Sheriff, Health Services, and the county's communications office, along with Dr. Lucy Jones, who directs a new disaster resilience center at Caltech. The presenters said a big quake would overwhelm first responders and knock out power, water, communications, and roads across several counties. A guest presenter said Los Angeles County alone accounts for about a quarter of the country's expected earthquake losses, and that fires after a big quake would double those losses.
• 7:10
  Theo: What's the county doing about it?
• 7:12
  Maya: The Board heard that every county dam has been retrofitted to modern earthquake standards over the last ten years. Public Works said about seventeen hundred soft-story wood-frame buildings in unincorporated areas have been identified, and Public Works expects to recommend a retrofit ordinance for them.
• 7:29
  Theo: And what about the rest of us?
• 7:32
  Maya: County staff said there aren't enough first responders to reach everyone, so neighbors helping neighbors will be key. In the first day after a quake, texting will work better than phone calls. If you live on the coast, leave the tsunami zone right after strong shaking, and don't wait for an alert. There's a new Know Your Risk website where you can search by address, at ready dot lacounty dot gov slash earthquake. The Great ShakeOut drill is October fifteenth.
• 8:00
  Theo: What comes next?
• 8:01
  Maya: The Board received and filed the report. Barger read in a motion, and said she'd introduce it for next week, after it goes through the cluster process. It asks for a report on steady funding to expand community emergency response teams, a full-scale or functional earthquake exercise every year, separate from the ShakeOut, and a report on partnering with Caltech's proposed disaster resilience alliance.
• 8:28
  Maya: Now a few shorter items from around the county.
• 8:31
  Theo: On Wednesday, the Regional Planning Commission approved a McDonald's rebuild at North Altadena Drive and Washington Boulevard, in unincorporated Altadena. The old restaurant was damaged in the Eaton Fire and torn down. The new building is four thousand, one hundred forty-two square feet, with two drive-through lanes and seventeen parking spaces instead of twenty-four. It can keep opening at five a.m., an hour earlier than the community's limit. The Altadena Town Council supported that, as long as the hours don't expand. The vote was five to nothing, and the deadline to appeal is October fourteenth.
• 9:07
  Maya: One commissioner worried that the perforated metal panels planned for the building could attract graffiti and birds. Staff said the final design will be worked out after the vote.
• 9:18
  Theo: On the Board's consent calendar, supervisors ratified a local emergency for this year's El Niño. They introduced an ordinance requiring closed captioning on TVs in public places in unincorporated areas, and asked for a report within a hundred and twenty days on homeless count trends. A vote on ending the local health emergency from the fires was pushed back to October twenty-seventh.
• 9:41
  Maya: The planning commission also continued again, this time at the applicant's request, an appeal over a home proposed on a mapped ridgeline on Topanga Canyon Boulevard. It's now set for January thirteenth. And County Counsel told commissioners that when a hearing is crowded, they can shorten speaking time or cap oral comment, with a majority vote.
• 10:05
  Theo: Before we go, here's what's ahead.
• 10:07
  Maya: The Board of Supervisors meets next Tuesday, October sixth. Hilda Solis has a motion asking planners to draft zoning changes that would ban large-scale data centers in all zones. Janice Hahn and Holly Mitchell propose ending the rule that contact visits in juvenile facilities need the Chief Probation Officer's approval first. The agenda also includes a proposed county policy on artificial intelligence, the purchase of thirty-two fire engines and pumpers for about forty point three million dollars, and final adoption of the closed-captioning ordinance. Mitchell has asked to continue the Governance Reform Task Force's recommendations on the new elected County Executive to October twentieth.
• 10:49
  Theo: That's the week. If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on this episode's page to report it, and we read corrections on air.
• 10:56
  Maya: That's the news from the county. See you next Thursday.