4 ms·

The problem with that though is that the overall budget includes big ticket items like pensions and overtime. And cuts often directly are from live services. So

The problem with that though is that the overall budget includes big ticket items like pensions and overtime. And cuts often directly are from live services. So even though it’s 2% of the overall budget, the cut could still be significant to the availability of firefighters and crucial things like response times.

defrost 2y ago
It appears we agree that the details of the cuts matters.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  More information since my last comment, at least half the budget cuts indeed impacted large scale disaster response capabilities. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california-wildfires/la-widlfires-budget-cuts-palisades-fire/3598438/?amp=1 https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california-wildfires/la-w... > The budget reduction, approved last year by Mayor Karen Bass, was mostly absorbed by leaving many administrative jobs unfilled, but that left about $7 million that was cut from its overtime budget that was used for training, fire prevention, and other key functions. > The variable overtime hours, called "V-Hours" within the LAFD, were used to pay for FAA-mandated pilot training and helicopter coordination staffing for wildfire suppression, the memo said. "Without this funding, pilot compliance and readiness are jeopardized, and aerial firefighting capabilities are diminished," it said. "Changes to the Air Operations Section impact the Department's ability to adhere to current automatic and mutual aid agreements, provide air ambulance service, and quickly respond to woodland fires with water dropping helicopters." > The memo also highlighted other programs that would suffer under the cuts, including the Disaster Response Section, which funds the bulldozer teams that cut breaks and control lines around wildfires, and the Critical Incident Planning and Training Section, which develops plans for major emergencies.
  - defrost 2y ago
    I have a serious interest in emergency service budgets (in Western Australia, although personnel from here do travel to California to assist in our off season). So.. cheers for the update and context, that does highlight a 'loss' of $7 million in training alocation from an over 800 million budget. Do 'we' hold the state of California responsible here for allocating less overall, or the LA Fire Chief for perhaps not making the best use of what was allocated to them. I'm an outsider and I'm avoiding throwing shade, just highlighting the complexity of budget issues. If the blame goes to the state then attention should be paid to the page 6 water flow from revenue to expenditures - if Fire needs more then Police(?) must get less .. etc. Cali Budget: https://cao.lacity.gov/budget/summary/2024-25%20Budget%20Summary%20-%20FINAL.pdf https://cao.lacity.gov/budget/summary/2024-25%20Budget%20Sum... (page 11) $774 million went to salaries, $46 million to expenses.
    - darth_avocado 2y ago
      The blame starts with the mayor and top brass of the city government. The literal job description involves running the city based on money they have, including prioritizing what’s important. Fire departments and emergency services are the last departments that need budget cuts. Obviously some blame does also fall on the fire chief, but fire departments are usually well run and from the looks of it, there seems to have been an effort to absorb most of the cost cutting in vacant admin positions. Whether there was an opportunity to make cuts elsewhere from the FD’s pov, we’d need to look at the data more closely.
      - defrost 2y ago
        > The literal job description involves running the city based on money they have, including prioritizing what’s important. Sure, and to that end the Police and Fire together make up in excess of 60% of the entire budget. Should all income go to the Fire Dept? (Obviously not) .. again, I'm an outsider, but from a helicopter perspective there already a good sized portion of the budget going towards Fire as a priority already. Should some of the Police budget be cut and redirected? One a portion of total available has been allocated it does rather fall to the Fire Chief to make the most of what has been granted. The challenge appears to be how to make what's available go the furtherest. Here, not California, we make considerable use of volunteers .. well equiped and large well trained volunteers with solid liability insurance should they toast themselves and backed by a professional full time core. I dare say similar things happen in California, I note the use of the prison population in fire fighting. It's a tough problem domain, not helped by all the outside hot takes on twitter and elsewhere that casually claim budgets are being gutted, etc.
  - b0bb1z3r0 2y ago
    [dead]
rayiner 2y ago
I recommend to everyone to get out of cities and counties that have large pension liabilities. You will be less safe, your kids will be educated more poorly, and your quality of public services will be whittled away because the money is going to retirees and debt. E.g. Retirement benefits and debt service took up 43% of Chicago’s budget in 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/opinion/chicago-illinois-pensions-debt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/opinion/chicago-illinois-.... A decade ago my wife and I decided to abandon our efforts to move back to the city (where we went to law school) because we saw this coming.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Orleans Parish certainly used Katrina to dump pension liabilities but I don’t know if I feel any safer for it.
- azemetre 2y ago
  And go where exactly? To towns that don't even have the tax base to support themselves and lack jobs? It's not like suburbs aren't sitting on financial bombs either.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/fiscal-stability https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/fiscal-stab... I moved to unincorporated exurban Maryland. The state government is a mess, but it’s mostly preoccupied dealing with Baltimore. Our county is great. Good schools with modest per student spending, the friendliest police I’ve ever interacted with. Even our county landfill is one of the cleanest and most orderly facilities I’ve ever seen. Nicer than most of New York City for sure.
    - khafra 2y ago
      I'd imagine that a lot of the people reading this work in tech, where pretty much every company has instituted return-to-office mandates. And of course, even if you were willing to spend several hours a day commuting, if you're in California exurban areas aren't exactly safer from wildfires.
napierzaza 2y ago
[dead]

defrost 2y ago

It appears we agree that the details of the cuts matters.

darth_avocado 2y ago
More information since my last comment, at least half the budget cuts indeed impacted large scale disaster response capabilities. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california-wildfires/la-widlfires-budget-cuts-palisades-fire/3598438/?amp=1 https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california-wildfires/la-w... > The budget reduction, approved last year by Mayor Karen Bass, was mostly absorbed by leaving many administrative jobs unfilled, but that left about $7 million that was cut from its overtime budget that was used for training, fire prevention, and other key functions. > The variable overtime hours, called "V-Hours" within the LAFD, were used to pay for FAA-mandated pilot training and helicopter coordination staffing for wildfire suppression, the memo said. "Without this funding, pilot compliance and readiness are jeopardized, and aerial firefighting capabilities are diminished," it said. "Changes to the Air Operations Section impact the Department's ability to adhere to current automatic and mutual aid agreements, provide air ambulance service, and quickly respond to woodland fires with water dropping helicopters." > The memo also highlighted other programs that would suffer under the cuts, including the Disaster Response Section, which funds the bulldozer teams that cut breaks and control lines around wildfires, and the Critical Incident Planning and Training Section, which develops plans for major emergencies.
- defrost 2y ago
  I have a serious interest in emergency service budgets (in Western Australia, although personnel from here do travel to California to assist in our off season). So.. cheers for the update and context, that does highlight a 'loss' of $7 million in training alocation from an over 800 million budget. Do 'we' hold the state of California responsible here for allocating less overall, or the LA Fire Chief for perhaps not making the best use of what was allocated to them. I'm an outsider and I'm avoiding throwing shade, just highlighting the complexity of budget issues. If the blame goes to the state then attention should be paid to the page 6 water flow from revenue to expenditures - if Fire needs more then Police(?) must get less .. etc. Cali Budget: https://cao.lacity.gov/budget/summary/2024-25%20Budget%20Summary%20-%20FINAL.pdf https://cao.lacity.gov/budget/summary/2024-25%20Budget%20Sum... (page 11) $774 million went to salaries, $46 million to expenses.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    The blame starts with the mayor and top brass of the city government. The literal job description involves running the city based on money they have, including prioritizing what’s important. Fire departments and emergency services are the last departments that need budget cuts. Obviously some blame does also fall on the fire chief, but fire departments are usually well run and from the looks of it, there seems to have been an effort to absorb most of the cost cutting in vacant admin positions. Whether there was an opportunity to make cuts elsewhere from the FD’s pov, we’d need to look at the data more closely.
    - defrost 2y ago
      > The literal job description involves running the city based on money they have, including prioritizing what’s important. Sure, and to that end the Police and Fire together make up in excess of 60% of the entire budget. Should all income go to the Fire Dept? (Obviously not) .. again, I'm an outsider, but from a helicopter perspective there already a good sized portion of the budget going towards Fire as a priority already. Should some of the Police budget be cut and redirected? One a portion of total available has been allocated it does rather fall to the Fire Chief to make the most of what has been granted. The challenge appears to be how to make what's available go the furtherest. Here, not California, we make considerable use of volunteers .. well equiped and large well trained volunteers with solid liability insurance should they toast themselves and backed by a professional full time core. I dare say similar things happen in California, I note the use of the prison population in fire fighting. It's a tough problem domain, not helped by all the outside hot takes on twitter and elsewhere that casually claim budgets are being gutted, etc.
- b0bb1z3r0 2y ago
  [dead]

rayiner 2y ago

I recommend to everyone to get out of cities and counties that have large pension liabilities. You will be less safe, your kids will be educated more poorly, and your quality of public services will be whittled away because the money is going to retirees and debt. E.g. Retirement benefits and debt service took up 43% of Chicago’s budget in 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/opinion/chicago-illinois-pensions-debt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/opinion/chicago-illinois-.... A decade ago my wife and I decided to abandon our efforts to move back to the city (where we went to law school) because we saw this coming.

selimthegrim 2y ago
Orleans Parish certainly used Katrina to dump pension liabilities but I don’t know if I feel any safer for it.
azemetre 2y ago
And go where exactly? To towns that don't even have the tax base to support themselves and lack jobs? It's not like suburbs aren't sitting on financial bombs either.
- rayiner 2y ago
  https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/fiscal-stability https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/fiscal-stab... I moved to unincorporated exurban Maryland. The state government is a mess, but it’s mostly preoccupied dealing with Baltimore. Our county is great. Good schools with modest per student spending, the friendliest police I’ve ever interacted with. Even our county landfill is one of the cleanest and most orderly facilities I’ve ever seen. Nicer than most of New York City for sure.
  - khafra 2y ago
    I'd imagine that a lot of the people reading this work in tech, where pretty much every company has instituted return-to-office mandates. And of course, even if you were willing to spend several hours a day commuting, if you're in California exurban areas aren't exactly safer from wildfires.

napierzaza 2y ago

[dead]