The City of Laguna Beach is committed to upholding our residents’ quality of life through maintaining local services, such as maintaining 9-1-1 police, fire, emergency and marine safety response, maintaining our local streets, roads, trails and beaches; affordable housing; programs for local youth and others.

The City faces rises in calls for service, as well as mounting costs for maintaining infrastructure and other City assets. The City is undertaking a review of its facilities and needs, as well as larger examination of service needs across the City.

As part of this, the City is currently exploring options for locally controlled funding to invest in these and other services provided by the City’s General Fund. Please use this page to get more information on the City’s services and budget situation, and use the survey link below to share your priorities.

Laguna Beach is a full-service city with its own police, fire and marine safety departments. The City currently has 58 sworn police officers and 42 sworn firefighters.

In total, these positions respond to over 56,000 calls for service each year.

• Laguna PD responded to over 45,000 calls last year
• Laguna Fire and Marine Safety over 11,000 calls
• Marine Safety nearly 7,000 Ocean rescues, & protecting over 6 million beach visitors
• Fire Calls for service up 10% from 2019, two-thirds are for medical emergencies.

 Violent and property crimes decreased overall for the third consecutive year in 2023.

Storms and flooding pose a potential threat to the community and impact on the budget every year. Storms in 2010 resulted in $8 million in repair costs (partially reimbursed by FEMA), and the 2006 Bluebird Landslide incurred a total cost of around $36 million (partially covered by a FEMA grant).

In addition to the City’s work on Climate, it is also working on upgrades to City infrastructure to to prepare for future emergencies and remove potential hazards. 

As an example, the City, in partnership with residents, Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), has done extensive work over the past decade to move overhead utility wires underground.

The City continues to identify projects to promote the undergrounding of utility lines to mitigate the wildfires threats, improve evacuation routes, and improve service reliability, and neighborhood aesthetics throughout the community.

The City was incorporated nearly 100 years ago, and much of its infrastructure is older. Like many cities, Laguna Beach is facing rising costs for maintaining these assets. The City maintains 93 miles of streets and roads, as well as many additional miles of sidewalk, trails, sewer and other infrastructure.

The City also maintains public spaces and buildings including 17 parks, beaches along seven-and-a-half miles of the City's coastline, community centers, Trolley service and more.

The City is also developing a Facilities Master Plan, which is a comprehensive process to improve a wide range of City facilities. This may include the Laguna Beach Library, the City’s fire and police stations, Marine Safety stations, art facilities and parking lots. Over 288,000 square feet of public facilities will be addressed through this planning process. More information can be found here.

The City of Laguna Beach is committed to facilitating and supporting housing opportunities for all incomes. The City recently completed an update of its Housing Element in June 2024 and in April of 2024 the City Council established the Laguna Beach Local Housing Trust Fund (LBLHTF).

The LBLHTF is a new financial resource to tackle housing challenges and will allow the City to apply for matching grant funds from the State Dept of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The Fund targets priority populations including artists and their households, seniors and local Laguna Beach workers.

The General Fund, the City's primary operating fund, has a proposed budget in 2024-25 of $94.6 million, with operating revenues and transfers of $93.8 million, with revenues exceeding appropriations by approximately $800,000.

The City is facing challenges that include rising costs for the delivery of public safety and other services, the expiration of pandemic relief from the federal government, and flat revenue growth. The largest expenditure of the City’s Budget is for Public Safety (approximately 39%), followed by Public Works (34%), including streets, roads, water and other infrastructure.

The City’s budget outlook can be described as stable, with modest growth. However, our sales tax and transient occupancy (hotel) have come in lower than our projections. At the same time, the City continues to experience significant cost increases due to inflation in costs for qualified personnel, maintenance of our streets, roads and other infrastructure, contract services, and construction projects.

So while our current budget is balanced, future budgets may not be able to fund some important priorities expressed by residents, including funding for improvements to Laguna Canyon Road, ongoing funding for our recently created Local Housing Finance Trust, as well as for City facilities such as a community pool, microgrid resilient systems and more.

The City has been able to control and reduce costs by

• Cutting $17 million from the budget during the pandemic.
• Numerous efforts over the past decade to control pension costs.
• Seeking State & Federal Grant opportunities for capital replacement and projects.
• Renegotiating contracts wherever possible.

The City Council is considering a measure that would Increase the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) rate by up to 3% to help support its General Fund. Funding from this measure could help maintain the City’s finances and be used for City services including:

• Maintaining 9-1-1 emergency police, fire, Marine safety response
• Maintaining and improving streets and roads, sidewalks, crosswalks
• Responding to Wildfires and Natural Disasters
• Cleaning and Maintaining Public Areas
• Maintaining parks, trails, and open space
• Supporting affordable housing for seniors
• And any other services and infrastructure maintained by the general fund.

This measure would have to be placed on he ballot by a 2/3 Super-Majority of the City Council, and then approved by a majority vote of the City’s voters.

The City is asking for feedback on this and other issues related to City Services. Please take a moment to complete the City’s Priorities Survey [LINK] and watch for upcoming community events.