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THE BOTTOM LINE - Los Angeles is not broke. It is being mismanaged and at this point, it is being mismanaged in plain sight.
With a budget approaching $15 billion, this city should be functioning at the highest level. Instead, it feels like a system in slow decline where spending goes up, expectations go down, and accountability disappears somewhere in between.
This is not a funding issue. It is a failure of leadership.
City Hall continues to present “balanced” budgets that rely on temporary fixes to cover permanent problems. Pension obligations rise. Overtime grows. Legal settlements quietly drain hundreds of millions. None of this is new. None of this is unpredictable.
And yet nothing fundamentally changes.
At some point, this stops being a policy debate. It becomes a pattern of avoidance.
And the public is left to absorb the consequences.
They drive on streets that are visibly deteriorating.
They wait longer for basic city services.
They walk past encampments that remain, despite years and billions of promises to address them.
This is not perception. It is reality.
Consider homelessness spending. Billions of dollars have been committed. Programs have multiplied. Announcements have been made.
But here is the question no one at City Hall wants to answer clearly:
What measurable outcome justifies that level of spending?
If that answer cannot be stated in plain terms, then the issue is not complexity. It is accountability.
The same pattern holds in public safety. One of the largest portions of the budget continues to go toward policing and emergency services, yet staffing challenges persist, response times remain a concern, and public confidence is uneven.
This is not about whether to fund public safety. It is about whether funding is producing safety.
And then there is the most basic test of all whether a city can maintain itself.
Roads. Sidewalks. Lighting. Sanitation.
These are not ambitious goals. They are the minimum standard. And yet, across Los Angeles, even that minimum standard often goes unmet.
That is not a budget problem. That is a management problem.
All of this is happening as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Olympic Games. City leaders speak about global visibility, economic opportunity, and international prestige.
But global attention does not fix local dysfunction. It exposes it.
If current conditions persist, the Olympics will not showcase Los Angeles at its best. They will magnify everything that is not working.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: the City is not lacking money. It is lacking discipline and increasingly, it is lacking urgency.
Money is being spent at historic levels.
But spending without results is not governance. It is waste.
And waste, at this scale, is not sustainable.
The solution is not more announcements, more programs, or more promises. It is accountability real, measurable, enforceable accountability.
Tie funding to outcomes.
Audit major spending categories with transparency.
End the cycle of papering over long-term deficits with short-term fixes.
And most importantly, stop asking the public to accept less while paying more.
Because a budget is not just a financial document. It is a statement of priorities and a test of whether leadership is willing to deliver on them.
Right now, Los Angeles is failing that test.
And if that failure continues, the consequences will not be political.
They will be structural.
(Mihran Kalaydjian is a seasoned public affairs and government relations professional with more than twenty years of experience in legislative affairs, public policy, community relations, and strategic communications. A respected civic leader and education advocate, he has spearheaded numerous academic and community initiatives, shaping dialogue and driving reform in local and regional political forums. His career reflects a steadfast commitment to transparency, accountability, and public service across Los Angeles and beyond.)
