Massive wildfires roaring through the Los Angeles area left neighborhoods in ruins on Jan. 8, killing at least two people and threatening Southern California landmarks.

Three major blazes that erupted just a day earlier blanketed the city with a dangerous, thick cloud of smoke and ash and destroyed homes across the area, from the Pacific coast inland to Pasadena. The fire burning in Pacific Palisades is already one of the most destructive in the modern history of the city of Los Angeles.

As the wildfires burned, multiple social media posts claimed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6 million, months before the fires broke out.

Did Los Angeles cut $17.6 million from the fire department’s budget?

Yes, Los Angeles cut $17.6 million from the fire department’s budget. That amount represents a roughly 2% decrease from the previous year.

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Records show that the City of Los Angeles decreased the Los Angeles Fire Department’s funding by nearly $17.6 million this fiscal year. However, that’s roughly a 2% decrease from the previous year’s budget.

In June 2024, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed the City of Los Angeles’ budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The LAFD’s total budget was $819,637,423, with $773,962,965 for fire department salaries and $45,674,458 for expenses, according to a budget summary published on the Los Angeles City Administrative Officer’s website.

“This budget serves as a reset, in part by continuing to hire for critical positions including police officers and firefighters while eliminating some of the department’s vacant positions, thereby prioritizing our City family over empty desks,” said Bass in a statement.

During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, a budget summary shows that the LAFD’s total budget was $837,191,237. That means that the LAFD’s budget was cut by $17,553,814, or around 2%, this fiscal year. Bass originally wanted to cut the fire department’s funding by nearly $23 million, according to a proposed budget published by the mayor’s office.

Some social media posts suggest that at least some of the LAFD’s funding was redirected to the Los Angeles Police Department’s nearly $2 billion budget. We can VERIFY that the LAPD did get a nearly $126 million increase in funding this fiscal year, according to a graphic shared on X by Los Angeles Controller Kenneth Mejia in October 2024. The same graphic shows that the fire department’s funding decreased by $17.6 million.

VERIFY reached out to the Los Angeles mayor’s office for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.