As the chair of the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee, Councilmember Krekorian oversees the $9.2 billion city budget. He has been a fiscal watchdog for the city and is responsible for reforming LA's finances and putting the city on a path to economic recovery.
When Councilmember Krekorian took office in 2010, the projected deficit for the year was more than $1 billion. Over the next years, Krekorian helped the city reduce costs by more than $800 million, nearly eliminating the entire structural deficit. Under his leadership, the city established the highest reserve fund in decades.
Krekorian has also made improvements to the budget that benefit our neighborhoods by investing in infrastructure, public safety and people. He has restored needed funds to the Los Angeles Fire Dept., improved library hours, and directed funding toward sidewalk repair, tree trimming, graffiti abatement, neighborhood beautification projects, cleaning up illegally dumped items, and senior and student programs at our city's parks.
Posted on Jul 02, 2020
The 2020-21 budget was assembled under conditions unlike any this city has ever seen. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March devastated the local economy, resulting in a drastic reassessment of the city’s financial prospects for the coming year. In a matter of weeks, revenue predictions declined by hundreds of millions of dollars. The city’s reserves, which the Budget & Finance Committee had prioritized and built up to record levels through hard work and sacrifice over the last eight years, were decimated in a few months.
Posted on Jun 01, 2020
For the past few days, my office has heard from Angelenos across the city regarding the Mayor's proposed budget. I appreciate all of those comments, and I welcome the public's engagement in fundamentally rethinking how government as a whole, and our city budget in particular, can best meet the needs of the people of Los Angeles.
Posted on May 21, 2020
Today’s budget presentation made clear that the City faces a financial challenge that is without precedent in our lifetime. The COVID-19 crisis has caused massive economic disruption, and with it a drastic decline in city revenues. Rapidly spiking unemployment, the shuttering of thousands of businesses and the virtually complete shutdown of tourism have led to a sudden and dramatic decline in city revenues from taxes on sales, business gross receipts, utility use, and hotel occupancy, among other things, that would have been unimaginable three months ago.
Posted on May 15, 2020
LOS ANGELES – Councilmember Paul Krekorian is authorizing $200,000 in Arts Development Fees to theaters in Council District 2 to continue paying rent and operating expenses during the COIVD-19 pandemic. The theaters can begin applying early next week for the funds, which are being administered through the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Posted on May 11, 2020
I've served as chair of the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee since 2012. At that time the City was still reeling from the Great Recession, and our budget faced deficits of hundreds of millions of dollars. Former mayor Richard Riordan even opined in the Wall Street Journal that Los Angeles would need to file bankruptcy by 2014.
