NC Budget Advocates — Departmental Teams & Training Hub

Next Training: How to Write Your Department Report for the White Paper

Saturday, November 14, 2026 • 1:30 p.m. • Zoom

You’ve met with your department. Now what? This session walks through turning your meeting notes into a two-to-five-page department report with four to six recommendations, using the report format guide. Led by Thomas Norman. Bring your notes and any questions your team is still working through.

The Zoom link will be emailed to all Budget Advocates and posted here before the session.

The Mayor’s FY 2027–28 Budget Letter: Five Things to Know

Mayor Bass sent her budget development letter to department general managers on October 5, 2026. It tells departments what she will fund and when their requests are due. Read it before your department meeting. Here is the short version.

1. The timeline is tight. Departments submit short-form proposals for new spending by Friday, October 16. The Mayor’s Office selects which ones go forward by October 22. Complete budget packages are due Thursday, November 19. Only selected items can appear in a department’s final request.
2. Five priorities. Requests must align with: (1) clean streets and basic services, including infrastructure maintenance; (2) homelessness services and faster housing; (3) community and public safety, including emergency response; (4) jobs and business development, including downtown and curbing runaway production; and (5) a “Games for All” for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics.
3. New spending needs an offset. Increases are reserved for critical needs and highly efficient programs. Each request should name an offset, such as realigned resources, new revenue, or measurable savings, and should show what it will cost in FY 2028–29, as the City moves toward two-year budgets.
4. Capital short forms are gone. New capital projects will be judged against the five-year Capital Infrastructure Plan and the City’s long-term ability to build, operate, and maintain them.
5. What the letter doesn’t say. It skips the roughly $166 million shortfall projected in the CAO’s June outlook and the cost of upcoming labor contracts. The Police Protective League contract (MOU 24) expires June 26, 2027, and five other public safety contracts are already open.

The letter does not apply to the proprietary and pension departments: Airports, Harbor, Water and Power, LACERS, and Fire and Police Pensions. Glenn Bailey emailed the full letter to all Budget Advocates on October 8.

Intro to the City Budget

Held Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Zoom

How the City of Los Angeles budget is built, where the money comes from and where it goes, and how to find and read your department’s pages in the 2026-27 White Book. Led by Thomas Norman. Missed it or want a refresher? The slides and the full recording are both here.

Next steps after the training

• New to the Budget Advocates? Start with Getting Started as a Budget Advocate (PDF, 8 pages): the budget calendar, talking points, how to set up and run a department meeting, and how to write the report.
• Read the three-page guide to the 2026-27 White Book (PDF), then open your department’s pages in Volume I or Volume II.
• Skim one prior report on your department in the most recent White Paper.
• Bring the worksheets from the August 22 training: Worksheet 1, Worksheet 2, Worksheet 3, or all three in one PDF.

Office hours with Thomas: the weekly drop-in sessions ended Tuesday, Oct. 6. To talk through your department meeting or report, email thomas.norman@budgetadvocates.org to set up a call.

Next NCBA general meeting: Saturday, October 17, 9:30 a.m., on Zoom. Next Executive Committee: Sunday, November 8, 2:00 p.m. Agendas and links are posted at budgetadvocates.org.

NC meeting attendance: log each month’s visit to your assigned Neighborhood Councils on Jay Handal’s “B A NC MEETING Attendance” sheet (link in his September 20 email to the Budget Advocates list). If you can’t attend, send a short report to that NC’s budget rep or president.

Departmental Teams, 2026–2027

Every Budget Advocate serves on at least three teams; each team caps at seven. Rose rows need more people — that could be you. Blue rows are full.

Scheduling contacts: each department’s executive office phone is in the table below. Names and email addresses for the staff who schedule department meetings are on the Chairs tab of the Departmental Team Tracker (Google Sheet).

¹ Aging, Economic & Workforce Development, Youth Development, and Community Investment for Families merged into the Community Investment Department (CID) on July 1, 2026, so their four teams now work as one CID team with one department meeting. Each area keeps a lead: Bill Curtis (Aging), Kaine Nicholas (CIF), Gabriel Avelar (EWD), and Mihran Kalaydjian (Youth Development). The combined team is above the seven-member cap by design.

Rose = two or fewer members, help wanted. Blue = at the seven-member cap, closed. Deep rose = over the cap, needs rebalancing. Italic purple = community volunteer (this month: Wafaa Elgendy of the Harbor Gateway South board, Safir Wazed from the Harbor Gateway visits, and Kay Hartman, president of the Palms NC, Kathy Schreiner of the Van Nuys NC, and Margaret B., a former LA Animal Services volunteer). Each person's most recent sign-up is used. Chair = confirmed by email; tbc = has offered, confirmation pending; open = the team still needs to pick one; tentative = interested, not yet committed; cons = consultant who advises the team and is not counted in #. Dept. meeting = the date and time once the chair confirms it; send it through Worksheet 2 or to thomas.norman@budgetadvocates.org. Phone numbers are each department head’s executive office from the City Directory (main line for Civil + Human Rights and Equity, Disability, and Water & Power). As of October 13, 2026.

Live assignments, one row per Advocate, and department scheduling contacts with email addresses (Chairs tab): Departmental Team Tracker (Google Sheet).

Writing Your Department Report

Every team turns its department meeting into a two-to-five-page report for the White Paper. The Mayor, Council offices, and CAO analysts read these reports, so a shared format matters. This format comes from Barbara Ringuette’s Education & Coaching book (October 2024).

Page setup

• Department name: Calibri 14 point, centered. “Meeting of [date]”: Calibri 12 point, centered.
• Body: Calibri 12 point, single-spaced. Margins: 1.25″ left and right, 1″ top and bottom.
• File: Word document only, no PDFs. Length: two to five pages.

Four headings, in this order

1. ATTENDEES. Department: Name, Title; Name, Title. Then Budget Advocates, then Budget Representatives.
2. RECOMMENDATIONS. Four to six bullets. Start each with an active verb (Fund, Expand, Require, Establish). They are our recommendations, not an echo of the department’s requests. Keep them short and explain them under Discussion. More than six? Split them under two subheadings.
3. DISCUSSION. A few sentences on what the department does, then subheadings such as Budget, Revenue, Staffing, and Challenges (and Successes), plus the neighborhood concerns you raised. Short paragraphs, active voice.
4. CONCLUSION (or SUMMARY). Two or three sentences assessing the meeting. No new topics.

Add addenda (charts, reports, documents) only when they are needed to explain a point.

From draft to final

• Start wherever is easiest: department name, date, and attendees, then the topics from everyone’s notes. Recommendations often surface while you write the Discussion.
• Ask the department to clarify facts, and consider asking a manager to check the draft for accuracy.
• Your team reviews the draft first. Then turn in the draft and preliminary recommendations early for the next Budget Advocates meeting, and expect edits.
• The editing group comments and asks questions; your team approves or adjusts the changes.

Want a model? Page 2 of the report guide shows a finished page, and last year’s reports are in the 2025 White Paper. Track your progress with Worksheet 3: From Notes to Report.

Reference Library

Training videos and guides

• Getting Started as a Budget Advocate (PDF, 8 pages) — our 2026-27 starter guide, adapted from Barbara Ringuette’s Education & Coaching book.
• Department Report Format (PDF, 2 pages) — headings, fonts, margins, and review steps for your White Paper report, from Barbara Ringuette’s Education & Coaching book.
• NCBA Trainings page — all recorded sessions, 2020 to present.
• Sept. 2025 “Meet with City Departments” coaching session (Barbara Ringuette) — on the trainings page, with the companion Department Report guide.
• July 2025 City Department Descriptions and Departments by Categories.

Core documents

• White Papers archive — read your department's prior report first (2025 White Paper, PDF).
• 2026-27 White Book — the adopted budget, department by department. Volume I (PDF): Aging through Public Accountability, including Police at p. 451. Volume II (PDF): the Public Works bureaus, Transportation, Zoo, Library, Recreation and Parks, the City’s pension contributions, and the non-departmental funds. Start with our three-page reader’s guide (PDF), which lists the page for every NCBA team.
• Council File 26-0600 — the FY 2026-27 budget.
• NCBA documents, bylaws, and agendas & minutes.

Submit Your Worksheets Online

Teams willing to share their work can submit each worksheet through these forms. Sharing is voluntary; it helps us spot common issues, connect teams, and support the White Paper.

1. Know Your Department

Download the worksheet (PDF) — fill it in as you research, then share it:

2. Meeting Setup and Prep

Download the worksheet (PDF) — bring it to every department meeting, then share how it went:

3. From Notes to Report

Download the worksheet (PDF) — use it when you write, and keep us posted on progress:

All three worksheets in one PDF

Training Slides

Intro to the City Budget • September 24, 2026

How Los Angeles builds, reads, and guards its budget, and when Budget Advocates can make the biggest difference.

Department Meetings / White Paper Training • August 22, 2026

Join a Team

Budget Advocates, Budget Representatives, and stakeholders are all welcome. Pick three or more teams — the rose rows above need you most. The form takes about two minutes.

Welcome, Lori Aliksanian, newly elected Budget Advocate for Region 6. Lori, start with the rose rows above; any three will do. The starter guide is a good first read.

Already signed up? Check your teams and who else is on them in the Departmental Team Tracker (Google Sheet) — one row per Advocate, a load count per department, and a Chairs tab showing who has agreed to lead each team.

Community Budget Survey

The NCBA’s 2026 Los Angeles Budget Priorities Survey asks residents what the City should fund, fix, and cut. Take it yourself, then share it with your Neighborhood Council, your Budget Representatives, and your stakeholders. The answers shape our department meetings and the White Paper.

Deadline: October 31. Responses received by then are included in the findings. Please share the survey with your assigned Neighborhood Councils and ask them, your LAPD Senior Lead Officers, and your council district field deputies to include it in their emails and newsletters.

Results so far: Community Budget Survey findings as of September 8, 2026 (103 responses, PDF; 114 responses as of September 19), which pairs each finding with the departments to watch and a question to ask this cycle, and Community Priorities Survey #1 results (500 responses, PDF). The survey is led by Gabriel Avelar, chair of the ad hoc survey committee; Mihran Kalaydjian submitted the Priorities Survey #1 results.