Hundreds testify at San Fernando Valley budget hearing, urging Council to restore jobs and program funding

Councilmember Katy Orozco convened the first day of public hearings on Mayor Karen Bass’s proposed budget in the San Fernando Valley, where hundreds of residents, nonprofit leaders and city employees urged the Budget and Finance Committee to restore funding and staffing they said the mayor’s proposal would cut.

Speakers described a broad set of threatened programs and positions: roughly 1,000 city jobs that commenters said would be eliminated under the proposal; reductions or elimination of the Department of Aging and senior-center programs; zeroed-out funding for immigrant representation programs; cuts to animal services including spay/neuter vouchers; proposed consolidation or elimination of youth services; and reductions in planners, transportation staff and other technical positions that commenters said would slow housing and infrastructure projects.

Why it matters: Commenters said the cuts would reduce core services, increase public-safety risks and undermine ongoing initiatives such as homelessness response, immigration legal support and climate resiliency work. Many speakers tied the potential impacts to vulnerable populations —…