Local nonprofit Downtown Long Beach (DTLB) Alliance released its Midyear Update on May 9, allowing the community to analyze the organization’s budget and objectives.
This report depicts a six-month period from Oct. 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 and marks the first half of their fiscal year 2023-2024. The DTLB Alliance, which originally dates back to 1937, is a nonprofit which advocates for the interests of commercial and residential property owners and tenants living in downtown Long Beach.
“We’ve remained steadfast in our commitment to provide support and resources to our stakeholders,” said DTLB Alliance President & CEO Austin Metoyer in a recent press release. “From creating new programs, adapting to the needs of new and incoming business – such as the DTLB Food Series and Mug to Mug – to fortifying economic initiatives with continued success – such as The Education Series – we’ve worked hard to rebuild our Downtown community while navigating the complexities of a recovering economy.”
The DTLB Alliance midyear update looks at several new initiatives taken and outlines notable achievements made during the timeframe, some of which include:
- Assisting 231 downtown businesses
- Hiring Veronica Giren as a full-time Homeless Outreach Coordinator to service the Downtown as part of their Clean & Safe Team
- Hosting 91 free classes and events in collaboration with Friends of Lincoln Park
- Receiving 3.7 million video views on their social media accounts and accumulating an audience of over 113K total followers across all platforms
- Removing 6,282 graffiti/stickers and 33,841 bags of trash from Downtown
The 2024 Expense Budget for the fiscal year 2023-2024 is just over $5.92 million and is divided as follows:
- Operations: $3,163,456
- Economic development: $525,764
- Placemaking: $381,600
- Administration: $807,490
- Advocacy: $224,746
- Marketing: $373,360
- Events: $443,760
As for the nonprofit’s 2024 Revenue Budget, making up nearly 80% of the revenue is the Property Based Improvement District ($3,975,854), which is composed of property taxes from 3,056 commercial and residential property owners. The Downtown Parking Business Improvement Area makes up $748,875 of the budget and is from annual fees collected from 1,600 businesses in Downtown.
The remaining $1,195,150 in revenue, which makes up the other 20.2%, comes from a mix of deferred revenue from previous years ($80,000), grants ($30,000), event revenue ($95,000), parking meters ($300,000) and contracts/miscellaneous funds ($690,000).
At Tuesday’s Long Beach City Council meeting, the DTLB Alliance presented their findings from its Midyear Update and received significant praise from Mayor Rex Richardson.
“Our downtown gets such a bad rap and I want to applaud your leadership and DLBA’s leadership because not only are you managing the downtown in a way that is proactive and taking on challenges, you’re actually the head of the downtown associations all across California and all the downtowns are looking to you for your leadership,” said Mayor Richardson. “The progress that we’ve seen on homelessness, on vacancy rates, on activations and placemaking, the whole state is benefitting from your leadership.’
The DTLB Alliance mid-year update report can also be viewed in full and downloaded here.
