The cost of January’s wildfires is draining Los Angeles’s coffers, spurring calls for more responsible governance. A stark example of existing management is that the city spends millions more to issue parking tickets than the summonses bring in, contributing to a looming $1 billion deficit.

Data from the Los Angeles controller’s Revenue Forecast Report show that the parking enforcement division cost $88 million to run in 2024 — $176 million when liabilities like pensions are added. Subtracting the $110 million in fines paid by drivers, the total loss was $66 million.

“LA,” the podcaster and North Hollywood native, Adam Carolla, posted Thursday on X, “spent $160 million last year to collect $100 million in parking tickets. If that isn’t the best metaphor for this town, I don’t know what is. Do something everyone hates and do it poorly.”

A reporter at Crosstown, Nathan Elias, writes that parking tickets were long a “reliable” moneymaker. The Los Angeles controller, Kenneth Mejia, now cites “declining parking revenue” as contributing to a deficit forecast at $140 million this fiscal year and $1 billion in the next.

Since 2016, Mr. Elias reports, “Los Angeles’s parking enforcement program has produced a widening hole in the city’s finances, racking up $374 million more in total costs than it has brought in from fines … one slice of a growing budget deficit the city is desperately trying to close.”

The administrative officer of Los Angeles, Matthew Szabo, told the city council on Wednesday that current fiscal circumstances are “extraordinary.” Rising costs of parking enforcement and declining revenue, he said, have “created a budget gap that makes layoffs nearly inevitable.”

Mr. Szabo projected “thousands” of firings across government to combat “serious financial headwinds.” In addition, he said that “immediate spending reductions are required,” and that the city council “needs to prepare for further reductions if revenues continue to decline.”

Los Angeles can’t fire everyone who slips tickets under windshield wipers. But it’s illustrative of the city’s dire straits that eliminating those salaries and other liabilities of parking enforcement would almost halve the city’s 2025 deficit.

One solution is to write more tickets. In 2024, Mr. Elias reports, the over 1.86 million summonses issued were “roughly 21 percent fewer than in 2016.” This coincided with a 40 percent increase in “the total cost of parking enforcement during that period.”

Additional tickets will also require paying more meter maids. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation is looking for money to hire more officers in the next budget, set to be delivered to the city council next month.

Like dolling out more tickets, hiking the price of violations will be unpopular with voters already frustrated with mismanagement during the wildfires. While Los Angeles hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1996, Democrats are on edge.

“We must leave no stone unturned,” Ms. Bass said in a statement on Wednesday. But in recent years, NBC Los Angeles reported on Thursday, “the city achieved labor peace by agreeing to salary raises for most of its workers,” set to cost $250 million this year alone.

Mr. Szabo suggested postponing — not cancelling — scheduled raises for city employees. That would require the unions to agree, but they have a contract. They’re under no pressure to take a hit when they have Mayor Karen Bass and the city council over the proverbial barrel.

The cost of pensions and salaries for government employees is an issue burdening Democratic cities nationwide. Many signed generous contracts with municipal unions when treasuries were flush, kicking the can down the road to tomorrows that are arriving today.

Ms. Bass didn’t hold out hope of help from Washington, citing “extreme uncertainty in terms of federal funding.” Rather than appeal to President Trump, she included “unpredictable federal fiscal policy and ever-changing tariff proposals” on her list of what’s causing her city to bleed red ink.

Los Angelenos won’t like some of the choices America’s second-largest city makes to close its budget gap and rebuild from the wildfires. A good way for Democrats to soothe the pain — and stay in power — is to stop doing things as basic as parking enforcement so poorly.