Congressional Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a spending deal after meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Published On 30 Sep 202530 Sep 2025
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United States Vice President JD Vance has warned that the US is heading towards a government shutdown after a meeting between the White House and Congressional leaders on Monday failed to make headway on a federal spending bill.
US President Donald Trump and Vance met with leaders from both parties to try to hammer out a deal.
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“I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vance told reporters after the meeting, flanked by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
Democrats and Republicans have until 12:01 am Wednesday (04:01 GMT) to reach an agreement, or government offices will start shutting down. Some federal employees will also be put on furlough until a deal is reached.
Republicans want to pass a bill extending federal funding at current levels until November 21.
Democrats have demanded concessions to extend healthcare subsidies and for Republicans to reverse cuts to programmes like Medicaid, which helps fund healthcare for low-income Americans.
They have proposed a short-term spending bill to keep the government running to give both sides time to negotiate, according to CBS News.
Faced by a minority in both houses of the legislature and a Republican president who governs through executive order, spending is one of the few areas Democrats have leverage, CBS News reported.
Vance accused Democrats of using that leverage to hold the government hostage.
“You don’t put a gun to the American people’s head and say unless you don’t do exactly what Senate and House Democrats do, we’re going to shut down your government,” he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they were trying to help Americans adversely affected by cuts made by Trump’s sweeping “Big Beautiful Bill” earlier this year.
Jeffries told reporters that changes needed to be made to healthcare spending before health insurance premiums rise for 2026.
“We believe that simply accepting the Republican plan to continue to assault and gut healthcare is unacceptable,” he said following the meeting on Monday.
Schumer said a government shutdown could be avoided if Trump and Republicans accepted bipartisan input.
“If [Trump] will accept some of the things we asked, which we think the American people are for, on healthcare and on rescissions, he can avoid a shutdown, but there are still large differences between us,” he said.
Despite failing to reach an agreement on Monday, Schumer still spoke positively about speaking directly to Trump after a lengthy delay.
“We laid out to the president some of the consequences that are happening in healthcare, and by his face and by the way he looked, I think he heard about them for the first time,” Schumer said.
Ever since Elijah Maldonado was born at just 29 months, he has needed specialty treatments that his family could afford only with publicly funded healthcare.
Diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant, he spent his first three months at a public hospital where the family lives in Orange County.
Now 7, Elijah receives physical and speech therapy among a host of other services paid for through Medicaid. He relies on a wheelchair funded by the government. An assistant paid for with taxpayer dollars makes sure he’s safe on the bus ride to and from school.
Each month, he receives a $957 disability check that helps to cover his and his family’s living expenses.
Josephine Rios wipes her grandson Elijah’s face.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Still learning to speak on his own, he uses a Proloquo speech app on an iPad provided by his school to tell his family when he’s hungry, needs to use the restroom or wants to play with his favorite toys.
“It’s his voice — his lifeline,” his aunt and primary caretaker Cassandra Gonzalez says of the app. Her compensation for his in-home care comes from taxpayer dollars too.
Now that lifeline — and much of the government assistance Elijah receives — is at risk of going away.
With hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cuts to Medicaid and food aid kicking in this fall thanks to the passage of the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — on top of earlier cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — a host of federally funded healthcare and nutrition programs that serve low-income Americans will be scaled back, revamped with expanded work requirements and other restrictions or canceled altogether if individual states can’t find alternate funding sources.
The budget reduces federal spending on Medicaid alone by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years nationwide, with initial reductions taking effect in the coming weeks.
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by accusing the Trump administration of “ripping care from cancer patients, meals from children and money from working families — just to give tax breaks to the ultra-rich.”
L.A. public health officials called the cuts devastating for a county where nearly 40% of the population is enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. L.A. County’s Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and about two dozen clinics, projects a budget reduction amounting to $750 million a year, and federal funding for the Department of Public Health, which inspects food, provides substance-use treatment and tracks disease outbreaks, will drop by an estimated $200 million a year. Spending cuts have prompted hiring freezes and projections of ballooning budget deficits, county health officials said.
Spending reductions, combined with recent changes to the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, could leave an additional 1.7 million people in California uninsured by 2034, according to an analysis by the nonprofit healthcare research organization KFF.
It’s not just that the cuts to these programs are massive by historical standards.
The new rules and restrictions are confusing and states have been given little guidance from the federal agencies that oversee health and nutrition programs on how, or even when, to implement them, experts at the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities wrote in a recent report.
What’s clear, the CBPP said, is that millions of children, older adults, people with disabilities and veterans stand to lose not just Medicaid coverage but federal aid to access the type of healthy foods that could prevent illness and chronic conditions.
More than 5 million California households receive food aid through the state’s CalFresh program and 97% percent of them will see their benefits either slashed or eliminated because of federal spending cuts, changes to eligibility requirements or financial constraints at the state level, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan California Budget Policy Center.
Elijah plays with toy cars outside his aunt’s home in Tustin.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
In Orange County, where Elijah’s family lives, public health officials were already reeling from federal spending cuts in the months before the budget bill passed, said Dr. Veronica Kelley, director of the OC Health Care Agency. For example, there was the $13.2-million cut to funding for family planning services in the county, and the $4-million reduction in funding to Women, Infants and Children nutrition (WIC).
The agency has worked to prevent mass layoffs by moving public-health workers in canceled programs to other departments or leaving some positions unfilled in order to save jobs elsewhere, and it has sought out nonprofit social service organizations and philanthropies to either take over programs or help fund them, Kelley said.
Now, Kelley is preparing for possible cuts to programs to combat obesity, maintain community gardens, help seniors make better healthcare decisions and reduce the use of tobacco. The agency also has to figure out how to make up for a $4.8-million reduction in federal funds for the county’s SNAP program that takes effect on Wednesday — another casualty of the federal spending bill.
The measures that the agency has leaned on to get through the year are not sustainable, Kelley said. “We can only do that for so long,” she said. “It’s chaotic. In terms of healthcare, it’s devastating… It feels like we’re taking so many steps backward.”
The looming cuts and changes have also set off alarm bells at Kaiser Permanente, California’s largest private healthcare provider with 9.5 million members statewide, 1.1 million of whom are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.
“Without the ability to pay, newly uninsured people will find themselves having to delay care, leading to more serious and complex health conditions, increasing the use of emergency services and more intensive medical services,” Kaiser Permanente Southern California Regional spokeswoman Candice Lee said in a statement to The Times.
“This will affect all of us as the cost of this uncompensated care leads hospitals and care providers to charge paying customers more to cover their costs. Some hospitals and providers, especially those in rural and underserved areas, will be unable to make up for these unreimbursed costs, and will be financially threatened by these changes.”
Standing in front of her sister Cassandra’s town home in Tustin, a quiet suburban city of 80,000 about 10 miles south of Disneyland, Elijah’s mother, Samantha Rios; grandmother Josephine Rios; and Aunt Cassandra are filled with worry.
Elijah points to a command on his Proloquo speech app, which he uses to communicate his needs.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Josephine, a nursing assistant who works at a Kaiser hospital in Orange County, said she hears the panic in patients’ voices when they describe rushing to schedule needed medical procedures in anticipation of losing their Medicaid benefits.
Earlier this year, Josephine joined delegations of unionized California healthcare workers who traveled to Washington with the aim of pressing lawmakers to oppose spending cuts.
Rep. Young Kim, the Republican who represents the Rios family’s district in Congress, was receptive to the delegation’s pleas to vote no on the budget bill, Josephine recalls. The congresswoman ultimately voted for the bill, saying on her official webpage the legislation was good for Californians because it would relieve the tax burden on families, ensure that government dollars are used effectively and “strengthen Medicaid and SNAP for our most vulnerable citizens who truly need it.”
Elijah’s Aunt Cassandra and grandmother Josephine look over his shoulder as he watches a TV show.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Now, Josephine looked on as Elijah, seated in his wheelchair, played on his iPad and watched a Disney program on his phone. He can press a tab on the touchscreen to make the tablet say “My name’s Elijah” if he’s feeling unsafe away from home, another to tell his family he needs space when upset.
Watching Elijah enjoy himself, the women said they feel awkward broadcasting their woes to strangers when all they desire is what’s best for him. They don’t need the public’s pity.
The family wants lawmakers and the public to understand how seemingly abstract healthcare decisions involving billions of dollars, and made 2,000-plus miles away in Washington, have brought new financial turmoil to a family that’s already on the edge financially.
Samantha, a single mom, works full time to provide a home for Elijah and his two sisters, ages 10 and 8. A subscription to the Proloquo speech app alone would cost $300 a year out-of-pocket — more than she can afford on her shoestring budget.
Due to changes in household income requirements, Samantha had already lost Medicaid coverage for herself and her two girls, she said, as well as her SNAP food assistance, leaving her at a loss for how to fill the gap. She now pays about $760 a month to cover her daughters and herself through her employer-based health plan.
The cut to food aid has forced her to compensate by getting free vegetables, milk, eggs and chicken from the food pantry at a local school, a reality that she said she was at first too ashamed to disclose even to relatives.
Then came the bad news Samantha recently received about Elijah’s monthly Social Security Insurance for his disability. She was stunned to hear that because of stricter income cut-offs for that type of aid, Elijah would no longer receive those checks as of Oct. 1.
“Before, he was getting $957 a month — obviously that’s grocery money for me,” Samantha said. The money also went to buy baby wipes, as well as knee pads to help him move more comfortably on the floor when not using his wheelchair.
“I don’t get food stamps. I don’t get Medi-Cal for my girls. I don’t get any of that,” Samantha said. “As of Oct. 1, now I’ve got to figure out how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to buy groceries?”
Luckily, the sisters said, the physical, speech and behavioral-health therapies that Elijah receives are safe — for now.
And the women know they can lean on each other in tough times. The sisters and Josephine all live within minutes of each other in Tustin, close enough for Samantha’s children to eat at someone’s home when their own cupboards are bare.
Every few months, Samantha said, Elijah experiences severe seizures that can last up to 90 minutes and require hospitalization.
Cassandra and Josephine like that they can run over to help if Elijah has a medical emergency. Another sister who lives farther away is on hand when needed too.
“What’s going to happen to other families who don’t have that support system?” Samantha said.
Given the potential for further cuts to programs that pay for home-based healthcare and assistants for people with disabilities, Cassandra wonders what will happen to her own family if she can no longer work as Elijah’s caregiver.
Where would the family get the money to pay a new caregiver who is qualified enough to work with a special-needs child who can speak a few words thanks to speech therapy but who cannot eat, walk or use the restroom without supervision? What if funding is eliminated for the assistant who travels with Elijah to school?
“People think that cutting Medi-Cal, cutting food stamps or whatever isn’t going to affect that many people,” Cassandra said. “It’s affecting my nephew and nieces. It’s affecting my sister. But it’s not just affecting her household. It’s affecting my household.”
“We’re not saying we’re going to Disneyland or going out to eat every day,” Cassandra said. “This is just living. We can’t even live at this point, with things being cut.”
The women offered up principles they feel are in short supply lately in the discourse over the government’s role in public health — among them “morals” and “empathy.” Samantha adds one more word to the list.
UNSC resolution to delay action likely to fail; Iran warns deal with IAEA will be “terminated” if sanctions, due at midnight GMT, are reinstated.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is set for a vote that could open the way for the revival of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.
The UNSC will vote on Friday on a resolution proposed by Russia and China seeking a delay to reimposing the penalties. UN “snapback” sanctions are set to be triggered at 00:00 GMT on Saturday, after the United Kingdom, France and Germany accused Tehran of violating a 2015 deal aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon.
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Should the council not approve the resolution, which seeks a six-month delay to allow for further talks, it will pave the way for the international community to reimpose an arms embargo against Tehran and a punishing global asset freeze.
The sanctions also ban the sale of materials that could be used in uranium enrichment and reprocessing, as well as ballistic missile development and travel of Iranian individuals and entities.
Diplomats have suggested that the UNSC is unlikely to pass the Russian/Chinese resolution.
‘Hostile actions’
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had been trying to rebuild cooperation with Tehran and resume inspections of its nuclear facilities after Israel and the United States bombed the sites in June.
Before the vote, Iran has threatened to retaliate by ending its cooperation with the IAEA should sanctions be imposed.
In a post on Telegram, Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said Tehran’s agreement forged earlier this month with the IAEA on inspection of its nuclear sites would remain in effect only if no hostile actions are taken against his country, including any move to reinstate snapback sanctions.
“Otherwise, the Islamic Republic of Iran will consider its practical commitments terminated,” he added.
The Iranian Students’ News Agency also quoted him as criticising the “European Troika”, composed of France, Germany and the UK, for pushing for the reimposition of sanctions.
The three countries have been pressing Iran to allow full access to its nuclear sites for UN nuclear inspectors.
On Thursday, Araghchi met his British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, to discuss the dispute, during which he “strongly criticised the position of the three European countries as unjustified, illegal and irresponsible”, according to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
China and Russia are expected to put forward the resolution that would delay the reimposition of sanctions until April 18 next year in front of the UNSC later on Friday.
The draft resolution would call on all initial parties to the deal, including the US, to “immediately resume negotiations”.
Diplomats told the AFP news agency that they did not expect the 15-member UNSC to hand the resolution the nine votes needed to pass.
In a meeting with Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora on Thursday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated his statement, saying Tehran is “fully prepared for any scenario” in case the UN sanctions are reimposed.
In his first UN address on Wednesday, Pezeshkian also reiterated that Tehran will “never seek to build a nuclear bomb”.
Iran has long contended that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, pointing to an edict by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and US intelligence has not concluded that the country has decided to build a nuclear weapon.
But Israel, the US and European countries have long been sceptical due to the country’s advanced nuclear work, believing it could quickly pursue a bomb if it so decided.
Like that one friend who repeatedly promises to quit drinking after just one last round, the American government is staggering toward another shutdown. It’s starting to seem inevitable — because it looks as though neither side is going to swerve in this game of chicken.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate minority leader who somehow manages to perpetually look both tired and smug, can’t afford another political retreat. He’s refusing to give Republicans another blank check, aiming instead to wring out some key concessions in exchange for a few Democratic votes to get a funding bill through the upper chamber.
The problem? President Trump, who runs the show for Republicans, views a shutdown the same way Hans Gruber viewed the FBI in “Die Hard”: as a feature, not a bug. Shuttered agencies and mass firings of federal workers aren’t obstacles; they’re leverage (and sometimes the goal itself).
Schumer can’t back down, and Trump doesn’t want to back down. That’s why the shutdown feels more imminent than the last time we flirted with one, back in March, when Schumer and Democrats folded.
In fairness, their reasoning wasn’t crazy. Trump and Elon Musk were running roughshod with their Department of Government Efficiency, and a shutdown would have only given Republicans more discretion to decide which services (Space Force, a new White House ballroom and, I don’t know, a National Strategic Spray Tan Reserve) were “essential.”
Democrats also had a plausible reason to believe that Trump’s steep “reciprocal” tariffs would wreck the economy. They reasoned that if they just kept their heads down, the president would take all the blame for the crash — a reasonable idea that fell apart when Trump pumped the brakes before careening the economy off a cliff.
Since then, Trump has engaged in a campaign of authoritarian-tinged vengeance at such an impressive pace that the Democrats’ strategy of “playing possum” seems laughably passive and utterly naive — like assuming a hurricane will just get tired and stop.
So now Democrats are thinking, “Well, things can’t get any worse if we fight back.”
(Spoiler alert: Things can always get worse.)
Still, you can’t blame Dems for drawing a line in the sand, consequences be damned. Blocking government funding is one of the only mechanisms at the disposal of a minority party to demonstrate their opposition. Moral outrage and pride practically demand it.
Why help bankroll a government led by a man who doesn’t negotiate in good faith and seems intent on bulldozing democracy itself?
Why be complicit in normalizing — and funding! — Trump’s abnormal behavior?
Unfortunately, most voters don’t care about democracy in the abstract, and even fewer care about the inner workings of Congress. They care about kitchen-table issues.
So Democrats are trying to marry their righteous fury with something more practical and concrete — casting the shutdown as a battle to extend Obamacare subsidies and undo GOP Medicaid cuts.
If you’re keeping score, the opposition party is now trying to portray this looming shutdown as being about multiple things. And anyone who’s ever cracked a marketing textbook knows, that’s a fraught strategy. Dare I say “doomed”? If you can’t stay on one message, your opponent will control the narrative — meaning Republicans will blame the fallout on obstructionist Democrats.
Republicans have a simpler pitch that could almost fit on a bumper sticker: “We just want to keep things funded at the current level, plus toss in a little extra security for lawmakers.”
Which message will prevail? Who will take the blame if the government shuts down and Americans are suffering in myriad ways? Democrats say that Republicans control everything, so the buck stops with them. Republicans will say the Senate requires 60 votes and Democrats are withholding support to score political points. It’s not a slam dunk for either party. The American people just want the government to function, and neither side is making that easy.
You really have to squint to imagine a scenario where Dems could honestly declare “mission accomplished” when this is all over. Still, there is a growing sense that it’s better to go down fighting, even if you’re destined to lose (which they might be).
The good news: We’re not talking about the debt ceiling or a possible government default; it’s just a government shutdown (something that has happened many times already). Social Security checks will still arrive. Federal workers will eventually get paid. Parks will close. Life will stagger on.
And so, barring some deus ex machina, we slouch toward another shutdown: a bureaucratic farce that everyone can see coming a mile away. It accomplishes nothing productive, yet feels destined to happen — like the “Austin Powers” slow-motion steamroller gag, except stretched out over weeks, costing billions of dollars and hurting millions of lives.
We’ve seen this movie before. We’re the ones being flattened.
This time last year, in a season that bore so many similarities to their current one, a first-place and highly touted Dodgers team temporarily lost its way.
Amid a deluge of pitching injuries (sound familiar?) and the absence of one of its hottest early-season hitters (Mookie Betts, who suffered a broken hand close to the same time Max Muncy went down with a knee injury this year), the club stumbled backward into the All-Star break, going 2-8 in its final 10 games of the first half and 1-5 in a Philadelphia/Detroit road trip that exposed undeniable flaws in its star-studded roster.
Twelve months later, another pre-All-Star-break tailspin has struck the now defending champions.
The Dodgers have lost six games in a row, swept in back-to-back series by the Houston Astros and the Milwaukee Brewers. Their romp through June and the first days of July (when they won 20 times in a 30-game stretch) has been stalled by sudden regression lately, with lackluster offense and a worn-down pitching staff contributing to the organization’s longest losing streak since April 2019.
“I think it is under the ‘it’s just baseball’ type thing,” Roberts said Wednesday after the Dodgers’ most deflating loss of their skid yet. “You never like to lose six in a row. It seems like we’re pitching OK. The defense at times has been really good. It’s just that right now we’re scuffling offensively, to have that big inning or to build an inning and get that big hit.”
But, also like back then, frustration is mounting as the Dodgers approach the trade deadline.
The Dodgers’ Hyeseong Kim looks up while swinging a bat during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday in Milwaukee.
(Aaron Gash / Associated Press)
“We can’t really feel sorry about ourselves, because there’s a lot of season left, and we know what we’re looking for,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We’re looking to win another championship, and playing this kind of baseball is not gonna get us there.”
By “this kind of baseball,” Rojas means this kind of offense.
During the last week, a Dodgers lineup that leads the majors in scoring on the season has suddenly scored the second-fewest runs (10 total, and more than two in just one of their last six contests) of the league’s 30 teams. In that time, they are batting a paltry .190 with only four home runs, a whopping 61 strikeouts and an on-base percentage of .269.
The root causes of that malaise are easy to identify: The Dodgers have been without several key regulars (Muncy, Teoscar Hernández and, until Wednesday, Tommy Edman) in their starting lineup. Their three healthy superstars (Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) are hitting a combined .194. Their depth options have offered little reprieve (Michael Conforto, Hyeseong Kim and James Outman have gone five for 38 while receiving increased playing time).
And, they’ve run into two talented pitching staffs, struggling against quality opposing starters such as Framber Valdez, Freddy Peralta and rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski, and two hard-throwing bullpens from the Astros and Brewers.
Granted, even $400-million payrolls like the Dodgers go through such dips in a season. And while the losses have piled up, the team has maintained the best record in the National League (56-38) and a five-game edge in their division.
“We’ve just got to put some at-bats together, keep playing good defense and it’ll turn,” Roberts promised. “When you’re mired in it, it’s frustrating. But we still have some pretty good players.”
The concern, however, is how quickly the offense has turned in the absence of a few key players.
Freeman and Betts were both slumping in June, but the contributions of Muncy and All-Star catcher Will Smith (the only regular who has also stayed hot during this current losing spell) helped compensate. Ohtani’s numbers at the plate have declined since he returned to pitching, but balance at the bottom of the lineup from younger bats like Kim and Andy Pages made such struggles feel moot.
This week, conversely, has highlighted what can happen when the Dodgers face good pitching at anything less than full strength –– the kind of confluence of events that could quickly derail any postseason campaign if it were to happen again in October.
“You can’t replace All-Stars. You can’t replace guys that have won MVPs in the postseason. You can’t replace those type of things,” Betts said this week. “The next man has to step up and do what he can do. But I mean, you can’t replace those guys. You can only have someone come step up and do their best.”
The good news is, Edman has already returned from a broken pinky toe. Hernández is expected back in the lineup Friday from a foot contusion. And, although Muncy’s knee injury is longer-term, he is expected to return this season.
“It’s one of those things,” Roberts said, “where we’ve got to find a way to weather it.”
Still, the questions this week has raised will loom even if the Dodgers start to heat up again (as they did last year, when they started the second half with a five-game winning streak and 26-13 run overall).
Already, the bullpen was an obvious area of need heading into the trade deadline (especially after Michael Kopech recently underwent a meniscus surgery on his right knee that forced him onto the 60-day IL). The rotation could be, too, although the Dodgers remain confident about having Tyler Glasnow (who returned to action with five solid innings Wednesday) and Blake Snell (who is beginning a minor-league rehab assignment this week) healthy for the second half.
Now, the club will have to decide whether it needs another impact bat as well, potentially adding to a shopping list that has grown much longer than the team had expected after another big offseason of lavish spending.
After all, Freeman and Betts have yet to show signs of life amid career-worst slumps. Ohtani’s workload won’t get any easier as he continues to ramp up on the mound. And there’s no guarantee how Muncy will look once he returns, with Roberts noting his bone bruise will probably linger into next year.
It all leaves the Dodgers in a familiar position: Hopeful its talented, but hardly infallible, roster possesses enough firepower to win another World Series, but knowing that — like last year, when the team acquired Edman, Kopech and starter Jack Flaherty at the deadline — more reinforcements might nonetheless be needed.
“We have to do better,” Rojas said, voicing a recognition that has reverberated throughout the clubhouse of late, as the front office evaluates its options ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. “We gotta find ways to be a complete team that we know we can be.”
Los Angeles County’s looming agreement with its biggest labor union is expected to cost a little more than $2 billion over three years — the latest hit to a budget besieged by financial woes.
The cost estimate, provided to The Times on Monday by the county chief executive office, will necessitate more belt-tightening for a government that’s running out of notches.
The deadly January wildfires are expected to cost the county $2 billion. The Trump administration has threatened cuts that would ravage the county’s public health budget. The L.A. County supervisors agreed this year to a historic $4 billion sex abuse settlement — the largest of its kind in U.S. history — and required most departments to make 3% cuts to help pay for it.
The cuts aren’t done, Chief Executive Fesia Davenport warned the supervisors Monday as she walked them through the latest version of the county’s sprawling $49-billion budget.
To pay for salary bumps and bonuses for county workers in the tentative labor agreement, the updated budget slashes $50.5 million, cutting funding for parks, swimming pools and violence prevention, among other programs. Soon, each department will need to make an additional 5.5% cut, said Davenport, whose office drafts the budget and leads labor negotiations.
“We are taking this extraordinary step because we simply have no alternative,” she said.
The supervisors unanimously approved the recommended budget Monday, which included an initial round of cuts to pay for some of the expected labor costs and the multibillion-dollar sex abuse settlement.
Despite their unanimous vote, the supervisors had little nice to say Monday about the plan.
“While the budget may look like it’s healthy, it’s a sick patient,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis.
As a result of the cuts, two probation offices are expected to shutter. County swimming pools will shut down earlier. Regional parks will now close two days a week.
“Like every other Angeleno, I’m mad too,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who noted a petition she had seen on Nextdoor that morning protesting the two-day-a-week closure of Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in her district.
The county announced last week that it had reached a tentative agreement with SEIU 721, which represents 55,000 county workers. The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by the union membership and the supervisors, includes a $5,000 bonus in the first year, followed by a 2% cost of living adjustment and $2,000 bonus in the second year and a 5% salary increase the third year.
The county is in negotiations with 16 smaller unions. The $2.1-billion price tag assumes that those unions will adopt similar salary increases and bonuses as SEIU 721.
To pay for the new labor costs, the chief executive office said the county will dip into its general fund for $778 million. The remaining $1.2 billion or so will come from federal and state funds meant for staffing costs.
David Green, the head of SEIU 721, said his members were “thrilled” with the tentative contract — the fruit of months of negotiations and a two-day strike this spring.
Last year, the city of Los Angeles agreed to contracts covering 33,000 union workers, many of whom would receive a pay increase of 24% over the next five years. The contracts, which the city estimated would add $3.5 billion in costs over five years, were a contributing factor in a massive budget shortfall that the City Council closed with layoffs and other spending cuts.
Green, who negotiated with both the city and county, said comparing the two was like “apples and oranges.”
“The economic climate has gotten worse in a lot of ways,” he said. “I think you felt a little bit of that in L.A. county bargaining.”
County supervisors appeared supportive of the agreement in Monday’s meeting, though quick to pan the overall financial picture.
“This is a budget I don’t like — I don’t think anyone does,” said Hahn.
But it could be worse, she noted.
“I know this is a budget … that won’t put us in the hole,” she said.
