The city of Los Angeles could be short hundreds of millions of dollars when it starts its next fiscal year in July, according to a financial report presented to the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday.
There is a $242 million shortfall heading into the fiscal year 2014-15, according to the city’s top budget official. There was no immediate comment from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office on the financial update. The L.A. City Council accepted the report without comment.
As for the fiscal year that ends on June 30, the city is facing a $21 million deficit.
Mayor Chuck Reed on Thursday unveiled his recommendations for the last city budget of his tenure, a modest plan to restore the police burglary unit and pave potholes using money from the Silicon Valley building boom with a cautious approach toward seeking new taxes.
The fiscally conservative Democrat’s proposed funding plan for the budget year that begins in July follows a similar theme of very slow growth seen in the past two years. Before that, capping a decade of deficits, San Jose leaders three years ago slashed services, laid off city employees and cut pay to close a $115 million shortfall.
“There’s not money there to restore all the services to the level that we want,” said Reed, who is termed out at the end of 2014 after eight years. But “it’s a whole lot better than where we were.”