THE BUZZ: POCKETBOOK PAIN — California cities and counties were already struggling to dig out of immense budget deficits, but the Trump administration’s recent pause of law enforcement grants to immigration sanctuaries threatens to make their fiscal woes even worse. Attorney General Pam Bondi last week ordered her Department of Justice to at least temporarily freeze funding to local governments with a sanctuary designation — including millions of dollars for California governments — and to review the way the money is being spent. There’s no guarantee the funding will be released. President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to cut off all federal money to immigration sanctuaries to the extent it legally can. That would rip billions of dollars from some of California’s largest cities, from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. San Francisco and Santa Clara County, which are both facing shortfalls, revealed the enormity of the challenges ahead in a lawsuit they filed on Friday against the White House’s funding freeze. San Francisco this fiscal year was set to receive $8.7 million from the U.S. DOJ alone, while upwards of $6 million of Santa Clara County’s budget comes from that source, according to their court filing. “The expectation for these funds is part of San Francisco’s currently approved budget and even if it were to immediately cease all activities by laying off staff and notifying contractors to stop work, San Francisco would still be obligated to pay for work done, adding to its current budget shortfall,” city attorneys wrote in their complaint. San Francisco could lose more than $3 billion if all federal funding is cut off, they said. That would be a massive hit for a city whose annual budget is just under $16 billion. The coming challenges also extend to Los Angeles, a self-identified sanctuary city that did not join the lawsuit as it seeks federal aid from the White House to recover from this year’s fires. Even before its policing grants were threatened, the city was nearly $300 million over budget. Local officials are already preparing to slash spending further after they made cuts to deal with a shortfall last year. In the East Bay, the progressive Alameda County Board of Supervisors has jumped into defensive mode amid Trump’s threats. The supervisors this month launched an ad hoc committee to combat his orders — an effort that comes as Oakland, the county’s largest city and a sanctuary jurisdiction since the 1980s, braces for federal cuts amid a record $129 million deficit. Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas said the committee is tasked with “protecting the social services and health services” the county provides for undocumented residents, LGBTQ+ people and others. Resistance efforts and legal fights, while perhaps necessary to avoid large losses in federal revenue, must be paid for by the deficit-stricken local governments. The California Senate at one point proposed setting aside $10 million for city and county counsels to defend themselves against the White House in court, but that funding did not make it into a final Trump-resistance package that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Friday. GOOD MORNING. Happy Monday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at dgardiner@politico.com and bjones@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @jonesblakej. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
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