The City of Long Beach will hold virtual community meetings on Tuesday, Jan. 25 and Thursday, Jan. 27 to gather public input on the City’s 2023 fiscal year budget.
During a presentation to the city council in December 2021, Budget Manager Grace Yoon announced that, “for the first time” the City would engage with the community “early in the budget process, prior to the proposed budget being developed rather than starting the engagement in August.”
She said that community members would have the 2022 budget book and budgeting materials “that describe every department service area and potential levels of service” to help guide their discussions. The City initially planned to hold four in-person budget feedback meetings, but switched to virtual meetings due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
During the last budget cycle, some residents complained that they were only able to give input on the budget after the draft was released, rather than before. Some also complained that the 2022 fiscal year budget process was rushed.
The decision to hold budget meetings early was made in response to a request by the mayor and city council during budget deliberations last year, Yoon said.
Early projections estimated that Long Beach could face a $36 million deficit in 2023, but that blow was softened by increases in property and sales tax revenues.
“Revenue is doing on aggregate much better than anybody could have thought at the beginning of the year when the last set of projections were made,” Financial Management Director Kevin Riper said at the December meeting.
The comments and feedback from these meetings will be “synthesized and reported” to the city council in early spring 2022, prior to the development of the fiscal year 2023 budget, according to a City memo.
“Whether you’re looking at the state budget, the LA county budget, or other municipal budgets that I’m seeing across the state, the state as a whole is in a much stronger financial position as is the country in a relatively short period of time,” Mayor Robert Garcia said at the December meeting. “[…] We could see a pretty significant decrease of that deficit.”
The community budget meetings will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 25 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Thursday, Jan. 27 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Residents can RSVP here.
A general budget priority survey will be available online through Friday, Jan. 28 for those who cannot virtually attend the meetings. Surveys are available in English, Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog.
