The Los Angeles harbor commission this week approved a $2.6 billion Port of LA budget for the upcoming fiscal year, with spending set to go toward ongoing environmental initiatives and waterfront access improvements, among other expenditures.
The plan factors in 9.1 million anticipated TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units, the industry’s measurement of cargo containers), which would be a modest increase of 2% over the current fiscal year’s adopted budget. The cargo increase is expected to result in a 4.9% uptick in operating revenues during the 2024-25 fiscal year, forecast at $684.7 million. Shipping services comprise about 75% of those revenues.
The Port of LA’s fiscal year begins on July 1. The neighboring Port of Long Beach has not yet finalized its 2024-25 budget, since the fiscal year for that port and its city begins Oct. 1.
The POLA budget includes flexibility for potential trade market fluctuations, Executive Director Gene Seroka.
“With a healthy economy, continued consumer spending and a strong U.S. labor market, we are optimistic about cargo volumes for the next fiscal year,” he said in a port release. “We’ve prepared a budget that leaves room for unanticipated changes in the global trade market or other uncertainties that may arise.”
Commission President Lucille Roybal-Allard described the spending plan as pragmatic.
“(The budget is) a prudent approach that carefully balances revenues and expenses,” she said in the release, “and sets up the port well for the future.”
The port forecast operating expenses for 2024-25, which reflect staffing needs and filling open positions at the harbor department, at $403.7 million, an increase of 8.4% compared to the previous budget.
Two major waterfront projects that are coming up — the second phase of the San Pedro Waterfront Promenade, and the Wilmington Waterfront Avalon Pedestrian Bridge and Promenade Gateway — will be included in the $28.5 million allocated for LA Waterfront public access improvements.
The budget, which the harbor commission OK’d on Thursday, June 6, also sets aside more money for capital improvement programs — 19% more than the previous budget. That category includes $44.3 million for the Vincent Thomas Bridge-Harbor Boulevard interchange overhaul and reconfiguration, $15.3 million for the zero-emissions port electrification and operation program, $14.2 million to restore and improve the Pasha Terminal, and $12.5 million for Marine Oil Terminals Maintenance Standards projects, along with other initiatives.
The capital improvement budget also includes $4 million for planning for the Port of of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach Goods Movement Workforce Training Facility. Building that facility — which would be the first of its kind nationwide dedicated to the goods movement sector and career training in longshore work, trucking and warehousing — is estimated to cost $150 million. The environmental review process for the facility began this year.
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