Mayor Karen Bass wants LAPD budget increase for more officers

LA mayor Karen Bass is asking the city council to give millions of dollars to the Los Angeles Police Department to ramp up hiring.

and the mayor talked about those – in the letter she sent to the city council yesterday.

With the FIFA World Cup next year and the LA Olympics in 2028, Bass says more men and women in uniform are needed now, and without this money, hiring would freeze in January. 

In a letter sent to city council, the mayor wrote that “The second largest city in the United States cannot have an effective police department with 8,300 officers – levels not seen since 1995.”

She says that if the city council allocates $4.4 million dollars for LAPD, they’ll be able to hire 410 more police officers for this fiscal year ending in June 2026. 

Her argument is that if the hiring of new officers stops in just a matter of weeks, that would mean no new cadets here at the academy in January.

More money spent on overtime for existing officers and strain on officers’ physical and mental health with longer shifts and more responsibility. 

Mayor Bass signed the budget for this fiscal year in June where the budget reduced LAPD’s hiring plans from 400 to 250 officers. But, the budget promised to consider hiring more officers if the city figured out how to fund it.

The mayor’s letter didn’t say where the money would come from.  

NBC4 has reached out to all 15 city council members and is waiting for more information.