LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors got its first look at a proposed $45.5 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2024- 25 Tuesday, noting the need to continue the fight against homelessness and find ways to help renters avoid losing their homes.

Fesia Davenport, county CEO, unveiled the proposed budget Monday, which represents a reduction of $1.4 billion from the current fiscal year. While the proposed budget is lower, Davenport insisted it will maintain the county's priorities on housing and homelessness, public safety, among others.

The proposal would also see about 835 new positions -- more than half of them in the Department of Mental Health -- for a total of 116,159 budgeted positions in the county workforce.

The budget proposal includes $728.2 million in anti-homelessness funding, including money to hire more outreach workers, housing navigators, mental health clinicians, and substance use counselors.

About $300.6 million, equal to 10% of ongoing locally generated unrestricted revenues, is being directed to the Care First, Jails Last effort as outlined in Measure J, which mandates funding for community investments and alternatives to incarceration. An additional $223.4 million in one-time funds from previous budget cycles would be made available for Care First Community Investment programs under the proposal.

Davenport said $95.6 million would assist foster families, prospective adoptive parents and relatives who foster family members. Another $81.1 million would be made accessible to replace EBT benefits for victims of card theft by skimmers and scammers acting statewide.

During Tuesday's board meeting, supervisors asked Davenport questions about various aspects of the proposed budget, with a clear emphasis on fighting homelessness and maintaining services for people in supportive housing.

Board Chair Lindsey Horvath asked Davenport in particular about providing financial and legal support for renters to help prevent them from falling into homelessness, nothing that such efforts are cheaper than providing people with housing after they lose their homes.

She said part of that effort is to provide legal services for low- income renters who could potentially be evicted "simply because they don't know their rights." Davenport said there was no specific funding for such legal programs, but the county's Department of Consumer and Business Affairs is recommending that $3 million be provided for legal assistance, and that proposal will be considered during the upcoming budget-modification discussions.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell said she was worried about state and federal funding cuts that could threaten key "safety net" programs supporting low- income households.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said she was pleased to see the continued investments in homelessness and mental health services.

"We will be ready to hire and deploy a new army of mental health clinicians, substance abuse counselors, outreach workers, and compassionate housing navigators equipped to help those experiencing homelessness to get housed and connected to supportive services that will keep them housed," she said in a statement following the hearing.

Supervisor Janice Hahn said the 452 new positions being proposed for the Department of Mental Health help make the budget proposal "the single biggest investment in our mental health care system since I joined the board eight years ago."

"It means we will be able to speed up response times to mental health crises calls, send more mental health experts into the field to work directly with people struggling on our streets and bring them inside, and perhaps most importantly, it will allow us to create more permanent supportive housing so that we can get people the treatment and support they need to stay housed," Hahn said.

In introducing the budget proposal on Monday, Davenport again warned of potential future liability claims of sexual assault under AB 218, a state law that extended the statute of limitations and opened a three-year window for victims of childhood sexual assault to file civil suits, regardless of age or when the abuse took place. The county is already facing allegations dating back to the 1970s.

"There is no funding in this year's budget allocated for these cases," Davenport said. "We are actively exploring options for managing any future costs."

She also warned of a number of other financial problems the county needs to resolve, including budget deficits in multiple critical departments, funding for seismic retrofit of county buildings, the expiration of Measure HHH in 2027, and costs associated from the Department of Justice settlement covering the county's jails.

"A major economic uncertainty that will influence the growth of the economy is the course of inflation this year, which will help determine how soon the Fed may begin cutting rates," Davenport wrote in her budget transmittal letter to the Board of Supervisors. "The presidential election scheduled for November 2024 may also affect economic sentiment and federal policy direction. Our office will continue to monitor the latest economic data and refine forecasts based on the latest trends throughout the year."

Following Tuesday's meeting, county officials will organize a series of public hearings on the budget proposal, starting May 15. The board will adopt the budget prior to the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, however, additional adjustments will likely be made following that date, with a final adoption anticipated on Oct. 8.

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