The city is inviting residents to take its online Budget Priority Survey to help provide input in the city’s budget, officials announced on Friday.
The public survey was developed to help the city prioritize the budget’s general fund, a portion of the city’s discretionary budget that is the most moldable. This year, the roughly $554-million budget is already slated to lose tens of million of dollars in deficits due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the last proposed fiscal year budget (2019-2020), about 65% of the general fund budget went towards public safety, with the majority of the money going to the police department.
While funding for the Long Beach Police Department gradually increased over the decade, local community leaders hope to divest from police and redirect dollars to other community resources.
Long Beach officials report having an average annual budget of approximately $3 billion. About 80% of that annual budget is tied to several designated funds. The remaining 20% of the budget pays for most of the city’s public facing resources such as streets and sidewalks, police patrol, fire response, parks and recreation and library services.
The Budget Priority Survey is available online in English, Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog. Click here to fill out the survey.