Long Beach is asking residents to weigh in on what they want to see prioritized in the upcoming budget, which will determine how city projects and programs are funded in 2025.
The city began hosting community meetings before the proposed budget was released in 2022 and is continuing that practice this year. This week, the city released an online survey in advance of five scheduled community meetings that will begin Jan. 17.
Long Beach has an annual budget that tops $3 billion but the portion that residents are being asked to provide their opinion for (the general fund) is about $700 million and funds first responder-pay, parks, road repairs and more.
The online survey is available through Feb. 1 and asks residents to rank eight types of city services in order of what they think is most important and then asks them to rank individual programs within those categories.
The housing and homelessness category includes programs like providing legal advice and support for renters, increasing the supply of affordable housing and homeownership assistance programs.
The health and wellness category includes community-wide disease prevention, access to healthy foods and affordable recreational sports and fitness programs.
Long Beach will host its first in-person budget meeting Jan. 17 at the Museum of Latin American Art and a final in-person meeting Jan. 30 at Recreation Park in East Long Beach. The pre-budget release meetings will be followed by a series of meetings in August after the city releases its proposed budget for the community to comment on.
Here’s a full list of the in-person budget meetings this month:
- Jan. 17 Museum of Latin American Art (628 Alamitos Ave.)
- Jan. 22 Doris Topsy-Elvord Community Center at Houghton Park (6301 Myrtle Ave.)
- Jan. 25 Cabrillo High School (2001 Santa Fe Ave.)
- Jan. 30 Recreation Park Community Center (4900 E. 7th St.)
- Jan. 31 Virtual meeting (Zoom)
All meetings are scheduled to run from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and you can RSVP for the meetings here.