The Long Beach City Council Sept. 9 voted to adopt the City of Long Beach’s $3.7 billion budget for fiscal year 2026 or FY 26. The Adopted FY 26 budget maintains core services without major reductions and focuses on key areas of investment identified in the Long Beach Strategic Vision 2030, among other priorities.
Many California cities are struggling with financial challenges and broader economic uncertainty. Since FY 20, the city has navigated financial challenges, using one-time funds made available through the Long Beach Recovery Act to stabilize its fiscal position. These sources are now exhausted and, while the city has worked to avoid increasing the structural shortfall, it is facing a cumulative five-year $60.5 million General Fund shortfall.
The adopted FY 26 budget reflects difficult but necessary decisions that must be made now to maintain essential services and financial stability in the future, including revenue generating fee increases, focusing on the preservation of current programs rather than introducing new initiatives, and sustaining core services that residents rely on every day. The passage of Measure LB by voters last fall also helped significantly in avoiding large scale reductions this year.
Long Beach is a full-service city organization and provides a variety of resources and services to the community, including the provision and improvement of affordable housing and addressing homelessness; support for economic development and business assistance; the overall continuum of public safety and emergency medical response; maintenance of safe, clean and accessible parks and facilities; and support for and advancements in infrastructure and livability improvements. The Adopted FY 26 Budget maintains these services and takes action to address the city’s most urgent one-time and structural needs for select service priority areas.
Because one-time funds were minimally available, the FY 26 budget required strategic decision making. Initiatives that departments requested were offset within, either reductions where it made sense or proposed increases to revenue sources.
Details: longbeach.gov/fy26.