LA Mayor Karen Bass handed out rich city contracts, forcing drastic cuts to fire department months before deadly wildfires: records

Los Angeles was forced to slash funding for the fire department after Mayor Karen Bass awarded gilded contracts to city workers, a review of public records shows.The trouble began early last year after Bass settled contract negotiations with public sector unions.In dozens of agreements, the city’s civilian employees pocketed 20 to 25 percent wage hikes over five years and other goodies that cost the city $4.5 billion over the life of the contracts, according to an analysis by the city’s administrative officer, the City Journal reported.

A series of unintended payouts stemming from judgments against the city in personal injury lawsuits brought Los Angeles to the brink.“Los Angeles is teetering on the edge of a fiscal emergency, with its finances in “dire” condition and no money to cover unplanned expenses after a series of lawsuit payouts blew a hole in the city’s already-tight budget,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in an editorial in October 2024, blasting Bass for the “self-inflicted” wound.The paper warned that the city’s rainy day expense fund— required to be 10% the $8-billion general fund budget was at danger of dipping below 2.75% — which would trigger a fiscal emergency.The financial picture forced Bass and the city council to cut the city’s 2024-25 budget to $12.9 billion, down from $13.1 billion the previous year.

That decision resulted in budget trimming across 20 different areas — including a $17.6 million cut to the fire department.“Predictions that city services will be impossible to deliver … are simply false,” Zach Seidl, the mayor’s deputy mayor of communications boasted last year, brushing aside the issue with a claim that has not aged well.

The scaled-down Los Angeles fire department proved no match this week for the deadly fires which have ripped through the Palisades and several other LA neighborhoods — leaving upwards of $100 billion in damages so far and at least five dead.“Mayor Bass’s tenure is a...