Election 2026 · City of Los Angeles

Initiative Ordinance FD: Half-cent sales tax for the Fire Department

Published September 29, 2026 · Updated October 2, 2026

Initiative Ordinance FD would add a half-cent sales tax in the City of Los Angeles, raising the rate from 10.25% to 10.75%, to pay for the Los Angeles Fire Department. The City estimates it would raise about $345 million a year, and it would last until voters end it.

Summary by CityHallPass, not the official text or legal advice. The official text controls: City Clerk's voter information pamphlet.

What would Initiative Ordinance FD cost?

The half-cent tax adds 50 cents on a $100 purchase (our calculation). The City Administrative Officer estimates the tax would raise about $345 million a year for a fund that can only be spent on the Fire Department. The tax can't be collected in any year the City's General Fund spending on LAFD drops below its 10-year average.

The details

The question on your ballot

Shall an ordinance providing funding for the Los Angeles Fire Department, including for hiring firefighters, paramedics, and other staff, purchasing and maintaining vehicles and equipment, building and upgrading fire stations, and brush clearance; by imposing a one-half percent (0.5%) sales tax in the City of Los Angeles; with annual audits and a citizen's oversight committee; generating approximately $345 million annually until ended by voters; be adopted?

What would change

The ordinance lists priorities for the money but sets no hiring target and no list of stations to build (ordinance Sec. 21.20.13). Hiring and station numbers quoted by the campaign come from the union, not the ordinance (see What each side says).

State law caps the extra local sales taxes that the City and County can add at 2 percentage points combined. The City Attorney wrote that the County already uses 1 point of that cap for transportation and that FD would use half of the remaining point. Measure ER, the County health care tax, does not count toward the cap under Assembly Bill 1768, effective June 1, 2026 (City Attorney report, pp. 2-3).

How it got on the ballot

FD is a citizen initiative. It qualified for the ballot through voter petitions.

• Nov. 25, 2025: Five proponents asked the City Clerk for an official petition title and summary: James Blackman, Irma Pomposo, Jessica Nassour, Dave Riles and Councilmember Traci Park (City Clerk letter, Dec. 5, 2025). The union behind the measure is United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, IAFF Local 112 (UFLAC), which the LA Times reported represents nearly 3,400 firefighters (LA Times, June 23, 2026).
• Dec. 26, 2025: The Clerk approved the petition for circulation (City Clerk petition status; LAist).
• Jan. 15, 2026: Firefighters launched the signature drive at Fire Station 58 (LA Times; Daily News).
• May 12, 2026: Petitions were filed with the City Clerk (City Clerk certification). The union said it turned in more than 225,000 signatures, the Daily News reported (Daily News). The County Registrar’s tally lists 191,688 signatures submitted (City Clerk certification, petition statistics).
• June 10, 2026: The Registrar checked a random sample of 9,585 signatures and found 7,906 valid. That was more than 110% of the number needed, so the Clerk certified the petition as sufficient (City Clerk certification).
• June 15, 2026: The City Attorney told the Council it could not adopt FD directly, because a new tax needs voter approval under the State Constitution. Its choices were to send FD to voters or to order a fiscal report first (City Attorney report).
• June 23, 2026: The Council voted 14-0 to put FD on the November 3 ballot. Traci Park was absent (Council vote record). The Daily News reported that the Council approved it without discussion among members (Daily News). The Mayor approved the Council action on July 6, and the election ordinance took effect July 10 (Council vote record; Ordinance 188976).
• Aug. 4, 2026: Councilmember Imelda Padilla and proponent David Riles both asked to write the argument in favor, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association asked to write the argument against. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson picked Riles and the association, and the Rules committee approved 4-0 (City Clerk list of applicants; committee memo).

Why the vote threshold matters. A special tax placed on the ballot by a city council needs two-thirds of the vote. Recent court decisions let special taxes proposed by voters pass with a simple majority, the Legislative Analyst says (LAO analysis of Proposition 43). The City Attorney cited one of those decisions, City and County of San Francisco v. All Persons Interested (2020), when advising that FD needs a majority (City Attorney report, p. 4). In January 2026 the Council’s Budget and Finance Committee dropped a separate half-cent sales tax idea for the General Fund. The LA Times reported that it could have competed with the firefighters’ measure (LA Times).

Related past measures.

• Proposition F (City, 2000): a $532 million bond. More than half went to 19 neighborhood fire stations and a helicopter maintenance facility, the LA Times reported. The paper called FD the largest investment in LAFD since then (LA Times).
• Measure E (County fire district, November 2024): a parcel tax for the Consolidated Fire Protection District of Los Angeles County. It was placed by initiative, needed a majority, and passed with 55.05% (County election results).
• Charter Amendment FF (City, November 2024): let peace officers in the Police, Airport, Harbor and Recreation and Parks departments move into the Fire and Police Pension Plan. It passed with 58.37% (County election results). It dealt with pensions, not LAFD funding.
• Measure ER (County, June 2026): a half-cent sales tax for health care. The LA Times reported it passed with just over 50% (LA Times). It raised the rate in the City to 10.25% on Oct. 1, 2026 (CDTFA rate tables).

No other City measure on the Nov. 3 ballot imposes a sales tax, so the ordinance’s rule on conflicting sales tax measures does not come into play (City Clerk list of the eight City measures; ordinance Section 3).

What each side says

In the City pamphlet. Ballot arguments are the authors’ opinions. No City agency checks them for accuracy (City pamphlet).

Argument for, signed by UFLAC President Doug Coates, Fire Chief Jaime Moore and eight LAFD firefighters, paramedics and captains (argument in favor):

• Response times: more than 80% of LAFD’s 911 calls are medical, and paramedics often take “nearly twice” the national four-minute standard to arrive.
• Size: since 1965 the City’s population has grown more than 50% with “no increase in firefighters or paramedics” and fewer neighborhood stations. FD would let LAFD hire “at least 1,000 additional firefighters and paramedics.”
• Wildfire: more money for brush clearance, water-dropping helicopters and other aircraft.
• Safeguards: the money goes to a locked fund, audits and an oversight committee track it, and the tax stops if the City cuts LAFD’s share of the budget.
• Cost: “five cents on a $10 purchase.”

The association’s rebuttal says FD would be the third sales tax increase in two years and would cost more than $86 a person each year, which is $345 million divided by about 4 million residents (rebuttal to the argument in favor).

Argument against, signed by Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (argument against):

• Tax level: FD would be the third sales tax increase in two years for City residents, after County Measure A (2024) and Measure ER (2026).
• Vote threshold: FD uses a court-made “loophole” that lets citizen-initiative special taxes pass by majority. Proposition 43 would close it starting in January 2027.
• Priorities: with more than $8.1 billion in General Fund revenue in 2025-26, the City should fund LAFD without a new tax. It cites about $350 million in General Fund homelessness spending and a City Controller letter warning that the Convention Center expansion would need about $116 million a year from the General Fund.
• Tax cap: state lawmakers keep exempting new sales taxes from the 2% local cap.

The firefighters’ rebuttal agrees that City Hall “should fully fund the Fire Department” and says it has not done so in 60 years. It says the City would still have a lower rate than Long Beach, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Burbank “and most LA County cities” (rebuttal to the argument against).

Outside the pamphlet.

• Mayor Karen Bass: “New revenue sources are needed, and this ballot initiative will help ensure that we can build out the Los Angeles Fire Department” (LA Times, Jan. 15, 2026). In June a Bass spokesperson said the Mayor “has championed this measure from the very beginning” (LA Times, June 23, 2026).
• Councilmember Traci Park, a proponent: “we are not going to solve this inside the four walls of this city budget” (LA Times, Nov. 21, 2025).
• UFLAC: the department “currently operates with the same number of firefighters as in the 1960s, six fewer stations and five times the call load” (LAist). Union officials told the LA Times the tax would let LAFD grow to 5,000 firefighters by 2050 (LA Times, June 23, 2026). Earlier, the union and Park put the figure at about 1,400 more people and at least 30 new stations by 2050 (LA Times, Nov. 21, 2025).
• Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association spokesperson Susan Shelley: the budget “should be prioritized to fund the fire department from the first dollar, not the last dollar” (LA Times, June 23, 2026). Shelley said sales taxes are “extremely regressive” (LA Times). In her Daily News ballot guide she wrote that “the city could and should fully fund the fire department without a tax increase” (Daily News, Sept. 29, 2026).

Checking the main factual claims against official records.

The pamphlet’s homelessness and Convention Center figures come from the association’s argument. We have not checked them against City records.

Who supports and opposes it

Supporters

• United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, IAFF Local 112: sponsor (committee statement; LAist).
• LAFD Chief Officers Association, California Professional Firefighters and the International Association of Fire Fighters, as named in the argument in favor (argument in favor).
• Mayor Karen Bass (LA Times; Daily News).
• Councilmember Traci Park, one of the five proponents (City Clerk letter; LA Times).
• Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who applied to write the argument in favor (City Clerk list of applicants). Her ballot measure committee gave $10,000 (committee statement).
• Fire Chief Jaime Moore signed the argument in favor. The pamphlet says a signer’s title is for identification only (argument in favor).
• Central City Association, a downtown business group (LA Times).

Opponents

• Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, author of the argument against (argument against). In June its spokesperson told the LA Times the group had not yet taken a position (LA Times). It was chosen to write the argument against in August (committee memo).

Editorial boards and columnists. We found no LA Times or Daily News editorial board position on FD as of Sept. 30, 2026. Daily News columnist Susan Shelley, also the association’s spokesperson, argued against the tax in her ballot guide (Daily News; LA Times).

Parties and other groups. We found no published position from the Los Angeles County Democratic or Republican parties, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce or the League of Women Voters as of Sept. 30, 2026. The donors listed under Money include other unions, businesses and two elected officials’ ballot committees. A contribution is not the same as a formal endorsement.

Money for and against

Source: the committee’s campaign statements for Jan.-June 2025, July-Dec. 2025, Jan.-March 2026, April-June 2026 and July 1-Sept. 19, 2026. Raised by period: $452,894.85 in 2025, $2,444,016.76 from January to June 2026, and $1,471,000 from July 1 to Sept. 19. The City Ethics election totals page still showed only the January-June 2026 figures when checked on Sept. 30. That page reports no opposing committee and no independent spending for or against FD.

The committee formed in 2025 as a general-purpose committee named “Repair, Rebuild, Respond-Fund LA Fire Now.” It took its current name with the July 2026 statement (City campaign statements filed; committee statement).

Who is giving

Method: every itemized contribution to the committee from Jan. 1, 2025 through Sept. 19, 2026, taken from the committee’s statements, the City Ethics contribution search and City campaign contribution data. Different spellings of one donor are merged. Categories are ours, based on the donor’s name and reported employer. Only $102.25 was unitemized.

• 63 donors. The ten that gave $100,000 or more supplied 85.0% of the money. Six donors gave less than $1,000 each, $3,000 in all.
• The union. UFLAC Local 112 gave $1,812,000, or 41.5%: $62,000 in December 2025, three gifts of $250,000 from January to March 2026, and $1,000,000 on Sept. 2, 2026. It also paid two of the committee’s legal and treasurer bills directly, $16,431.30 and $7,522.04, which the committee reported separately from its contribution totals (City Ethics contribution search; July-Sept. statement).
• Top five donors gave 67.8% of the money. The top ten gave 85.0%.
• Individuals. 26 people gave $356,060.75 (8.2%).
• Where donors are. 76.8% of the money came from donors with City of Los Angeles ZIP codes, using the same City ZIP method as our Mayor page. Committees report their office address, so this mostly shows where organizations are based.

Source: City Ethics contribution search, City campaign contribution data and the committee’s 2025 statements, analyzed by CityHallPass.

Source: same as above, analyzed by CityHallPass.

Notable donors. Two individuals gave $50,000 or more: Thomas Safran ($100,000) and Rick Caruso ($50,000). Five more individuals gave $25,000 to $26,000 each, $126,000 in all. Businesses include Kilroy Realty ($25,000), AEG ($10,000), Webcor Construction ($5,000) and Athens Services ($5,000). Political committees tied to elected officials include County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s ballot measure committee ($25,000) and Councilmember Imelda Padilla’s ($10,000). Firefighter groups from outside Los Angeles include locals in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, Palo Alto, Redondo Beach and Chino Valley (City Ethics contribution search; July-Sept. statement). The filings do not say which fund or donor at the California Community Foundation made its two $200,000 gifts. The California Community Foundation, FD’s second-largest donor, also gave $200,000 on Sept. 15, 2026 to the committee opposing Proposition 43, the statewide measure on the vote needed for citizen special taxes (Cal-Access, committee 1492508; our Proposition 43 page).

Where committee donors get their money. Several donors are themselves political committees. Their own state filings, from the Cal-Access raw data export for Jan. 1, 2025 to Sept. 19, 2026, show:

• Western States Regional Council of Carpenters Issues Committee (Cal-Access): $2,539,632.72 of its $2,543,825.22 in itemized receipts came from the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters.
• Members’ Voice of the State Building and Construction Trades Council (Cal-Access): $2,484,091.11 in itemized receipts, led by the State Building and Construction Trades Council ($908,710.89) and an Operating Engineers Local 3 committee ($250,000), plus member dues forwarded by union locals.
• IBEW Local 11 PAC (Cal-Access): all receipts are unitemized member contributions of less than $100.
• Committee to Expand the Middle Class (Cal-Access): all $2,512,000 came from Airbnb, Inc.
• California Apartment Association Issues Committee (Cal-Access): $575,000, including $500,000 from the association’s Californians for Responsible Housing committee.
• The committee listed as Californians to Protect Retirement & Life Savings (Cal-Access) is registered with the state as “Yes on 42 - Protect Retirement & Life Savings.” It received $60.8 million from Building A Better California. Its $50,000 gift to the FD committee appears in both committees’ filings; the FD committee reported receiving it on April 17, 2026 (City Ethics contribution search; Cal-Access, committee 1488418). See our Proposition 42 page.
• California Professional Firefighters Ballot Issue Committee (Cal-Access): no itemized contributions in this period. Its last one was $250,000 from the IAFF’s FirePAC in November 2024.
• UFLAC: the Yes committee reported the union’s $1.81 million under the ID of UFLAC’s small contributor committee. That committee’s own state filings show only $52,493 received and $28,530.01 spent in all of 2026 through Sept. 19 (Cal-Access). The filings do not show where in the union’s finances the $1.81 million came from.

How the money was spent. The committee reported $3,950,237.40 in cash payments in 2026 through Sept. 19. The Outreach Team, Inc. was paid $2.6 million for petition circulation (65.8%). AL Media was paid $681,429 for digital ads on YouTube, Meta, Google and streaming TV. Firefighters Print & Design was paid $362,000.66 for literature. Consultants Jimmy Blackman & Associates were paid $138,243.61 and The Avila Team $61,014. Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates was paid $45,750 for polling (City Ethics expenditure search; July-Sept. statement).

Outside spending

No independent expenditures for or against FD had been reported to the City Ethics Commission when checked on Sept. 30, 2026 (City Ethics election totals).

Independent analysis

The City’s official analyses are the Chief Legislative Analyst’s impartial summary (City pamphlet) and the City Administrative Officer’s financial impact statement (City pamphlet). The City Attorney’s June 15 report credits the $345 million estimate to the Office of Finance (City Attorney report, p. 3). We found no report on FD from the City Controller as of Sept. 30, 2026. Under FD the Controller would appoint one member of the oversight committee (ordinance Sec. 21.20.14).

LAFD’s budget now

• The proposed 2026-27 budget gives the Fire Department $1,456.1 million and 3,904 positions (CAO, Exhibit C).
• For 2024-25, Mayor Bass proposed a 2.7% cut to LAFD’s budget, and the Council reduced the cut to $17 million. Firefighter raises and $58 million for new trucks and equipment, approved later, made the operating budget more than 7% larger than the year before. CAO Matt Szabo said further planned changes would bring it to $963 million, a 9% increase, the LA Times reported (LA Times, Jan. 10, 2025).
• Then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley wrote in December 2024 that a $7 million cut in overtime staffing hours had “severely limited” LAFD’s ability to prepare for large emergencies, the LA Times reported. Szabo said total fire overtime had gone up (LA Times).
• The 2025-26 budget was $76 million (9%) higher than the year before, LAist reported (LAist).

The maintenance-of-effort floor

FD can only be collected in a year when the City keeps LAFD at “the average percentage of total discretionary budget funding” it received over the ten fiscal years before the tax starts (ordinance Sec. 21.20.19). The ordinance does not define “discretionary budget.” One official measure is the CAO’s yearly table of each department’s share of unrestricted revenue:

Source: Exhibit E of the CAO’s proposed budgets for 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27. Each year’s figure is from the following year’s book, except 2026-27.

The seven years shown average 15.6%, with a low of 14.6% and a high of 16.4%. That average is our calculation, not the City’s. The official baseline will cover ten years and will be fixed when the tax starts. The City must certify each year that it meets the floor (ordinance Sec. 21.20.19). At 16.0%, the proposed 2026-27 share is above that seven-year average.

Response times and staffing

LAFD’s public monthly data show average response times rising each year since 2016 (simple average of the monthly figures; LAFD response metrics):

Source: LAFD Citywide Response Metrics, analyzed by CityHallPass. Times are minutes and seconds.

The 2024 LAFD staff report, done with the IAFF, recommended 378 more positions to staff existing engines and 32 peak-hour ambulances in the short term, seven more battalion offices in three to six years, and 62 new stations in the long term. It did not put a dollar figure on the cost. The Board of Fire Commissioners was asked to receive it and send it to the Mayor and Council (LAFD report, Nov. 18, 2024). That copy is posted on the Yes campaign’s website. The Daily News, citing LAFD officials, described the IAFF review as finding a need for 62 new stations and 4,000 more firefighters (Daily News).

The Palisades Fire after-action review

LAFD’s after-action review of the January 2025 Palisades Fire was released Oct. 8, 2025 (LAFD report, archived copy). Findings that bear on funding:

• In 2017 LAFD changed its red-flag staffing rule from “shall staff” to “consider staffing” because of “financial constraints and Departmental staffing shortages.” On Jan. 7, 2025, the report says, the decision was “overwhelmingly based on perceived financial constraints” (report, staffing section and lessons learned).
• About 225 more members would have been needed to staff the available resources. Only one-third of the resources eligible for state reimbursement were used, because of a worksheet error (report).
• Forty engines were in the repair yard that day. The reserve fleet had “significantly diminished over the past decade,” partly due to fewer civilian mechanics (report).

Proposition 43 and the vote needed

Proposition 43, a statewide measure on the same ballot, would require a two-thirds vote for special taxes proposed by voters. The Attorney General’s official summary says it “Applies to voter-proposed ballot measures approved after January 1, 2027” (official title and summary). The City’s impartial summary says FD takes effect if a majority approves it (City pamphlet). The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association’s argument against FD says FD “would squeeze through the loophole” before Proposition 43 takes effect (argument against). Elena Q. Gerli of the law firm Burke, Williams & Sorensen wrote that local tax measures on the November 2026 ballot “are still governed by the current majority-vote rule” (California City News). That is one firm’s reading. California Professional Firefighters, a supporter of FD, signed the state argument against Proposition 43 (Prop. 43 arguments). See our Proposition 43 page.

If it passes

• When it starts. The ordinance takes effect ten days after the City certifies the vote. The tax starts on the first day of the first calendar quarter that begins more than 110 days after the ordinance is adopted (ordinance Section 4). The Chief Legislative Analyst describes this as “approximately 110 days after voter approval” (City pamphlet). The City has not announced a date. The City must first contract with the state tax agency to collect it (ordinance Sec. 21.20.3).
• Oversight committee. Five City residents who are not current City employees, officials, contractors or vendors. The Mayor, Fire Chief, Controller, City Administrative Officer and the chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee each pick one. Terms are three years, with a limit of two in a row. The committee meets three times a year in public, reports at least once a year, and is advisory only. It can’t be disbanded in its first ten years, and its costs come from the tax (ordinance Sec. 21.20.14).
• Audits. The revenue and its uses must be included in the City’s annual independent audit, paid for from the tax (ordinance Sec. 21.20.15).
• Maintenance of effort. If the City budgets less than the ten-year average share for LAFD, it can’t collect the tax that year. The City must certify compliance each year (ordinance Sec. 21.20.19).
• Construction rules. New and replacement fire stations paid for by the tax must follow the Public Works project labor agreement and pay prevailing wages. The Council may create a local hiring program (ordinance Sec. 21.20.20).
• Changes. The Council can amend FD only by a two-thirds vote after 30 days’ notice, and only in ways that are needed to carry it out, don’t change the rate, amount or duration, and further its purpose (ordinance Sec. 21.20.18).
• Legal challenges. The ordinance tells the City to defend it in court. If the City does not, the proponents may defend it, and the City must pay their reasonable attorneys’ fees (ordinance Section 5). The main legal question raised so far is the vote threshold (see Proposition 43 and the vote needed).

Key moments

No debate or forum focused on FD was found in news coverage or City records as of Sept. 30, 2026.

• Proposal filed (Nov.-Dec. 2025). The LA Times reported the union’s plan on Nov. 21. Acting union president Doug Coates called it “the most important thing for the LAFD really ever” (LA Times). The proponents asked for a petition title on Nov. 25, and the Clerk cleared the petition on Dec. 26 (City Clerk petition status).
• Campaign launch and Bass endorsement (Jan. 15, 2026). Bass backed the measure. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association said the City had “essentially told the firefighters’ union to go out and get their own tax increase” (Daily News; LA Times).
• Measure ER passes (June 2026). The County’s health care sales tax passed with just above 50%, raising the base rate FD would add to (LA Times; CDTFA rate tables).
• Council vote during the Boyle Heights fire (June 23, 2026). The Council placed FD on the ballot while a warehouse fire in Boyle Heights was in its seventh day. Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said the measure “gives voters a chance to weigh in” (LA Times; LAist).
• Campaign money (September 2026). The union gave the Yes committee $1 million on Sept. 2, and the committee spent $681,429 on digital ads from July 1 to Sept. 19 (July-Sept. statement).

Polls

No public poll on FD from an academic, media or nonpartisan pollster was found as of Sept. 30, 2026. The Yes committee paid two firms for research, $45,750 to Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates for polling and $9,800 to Change Research, and has not released results (City Ethics expenditure search; July-Sept. statement).