Executive Summary 

In January of 2025, the Eaton Canyon Wildfire and Palisades Wildfire, among other wildfires in Southern California, devastated large portions of Los Angeles County. As a result, total economic losses amounted to $250–$275 billion, the highest of any U.S. natural disaster (Vincent, 2025). Beyond the financial damage, homes, businesses, and communities, such as Altadena, were destroyed. In response, Los Angeles County Mayor Karen Bass pledged to rebuild the communities affected. Nine months later, progress remains limited. As of October 2025, the number of permits issued by the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County accounted for only 10% of homes affected by the fires (Farberov, 2025). Furthermore, in the Pacific Palisades, approximately 230 homes were under construction, roughly equivalent to 3% of the 6,000 properties destroyed (Farberov, 2025). While several political and socioeconomic factors have contributed to the slow rebuilding effort, these outcomes highlight a deeper issue: government bureaucracy. Inefficiency is prevalent in virtually every government and public sector industry, but Los Angeles is a particularly salient case because of its response to the wildfires and its difficulty in providing rapid support to affected communities. However, from traffic congestion to aging infrastructure and costly government services, public sector bureaucracy has affected everyone in Los Angeles. It might be tempting for one to think shrinking the size of government is the solution; however, this assumption has some flaws. In fact, improving efficiency may require providing more material and structural support to the public sector, thereby increasing the size of government. This is because the public sector provides key services, such as utilities, public transportation, and welfare, that can only be maintained by the government. Although the operation of these services can be privatized, these services have historically remained under public control. Therefore, reducing inefficiency should focus on strengthening the public sector and its efficiency, which might require additional resources, rather than reducing its size altogether. Within this framework, excessive bureaucracy can be addressed across several areas: public sector staffing shortages, contracting inefficiencies, duplicative authority, ineffective procurement rules, and outdated regulations. To address these issues, the county and city governments can expand public sector staff capacity, simplify their contracting process, clarify departmental authority, and reevaluate ineffective programs and regulations. 

Policy Context & Framework 

Bureaucracy in Political and Conceptual Context 

When discussing government inefficiency, it is important to distinguish between bureaucracy in a political sense and bureaucracy as a government structure. In political discourse, bureaucracy is often used as a catch-all term and means different things across the ideological spectrum. For instance, House Speaker Mike Johnson identified limited government as one of the seven pillars of conservatism. Johnson (2018) argues that the government becomes more efficient and less prone to corruption when its size and extent are reduced. Consistent with this perspective, upon returning to office, the Trump administration established the “Department of Government Efficiency,” initiated a hiring freeze across federal agencies, and pledged to eliminate “waste,” “fraud,” and “abuse” (Wooly & Peters, 2025). On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have written Abundance, a book that offers a different perspective on bureaucracy (Conroy, 2025). They propose “abundance liberalism,” a left-wing ideology that affirms the government’s role in building infrastructure, while emphasizing the reduction of regulations that hinder its ability to do so (Conroy, 2025). However, these perspectives do not fully address what bureaucracy is in a structural sense. For clarity, Merriam-Webster (n.d.; accessed December 2025) defines bureaucracy as “government characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority.” In theory, bureaucracy can be a positive force because it creates order and stability, especially when the government must address complex or nuanced issues. Any large-scale government requires some level of bureaucracy to delegate tasks and effectively manage a town, city, state, or nation. In American politics, bureaucracy is often used interchangeably with “red tape,” a term that describes a collection of laws that overregulate any particular sector of the economy. It is important to distinguish between the two, as government inefficiency results from excessive bureaucracy rather than bureaucracy itself. Therefore, to build infrastructure quickly, provide services more efficiently, and reduce government inefficiency as a whole, excessive levels of bureaucracy must be reduced. 

Excessive bureaucracy and Los Angeles’s Infrastructure Challenges 

The effects of excessive bureaucracy are evident in Los Angeles’ aging water infrastructure. Approximately one in every five of the city’s water pipes was built before 1931 and will be due for replacement within the next 15 years (Hall, 2024). The replacement of these pipes is set to cost the city around $1 billion (Hall, 2024). This raises questions about why the pipes have not yet been replaced. Budget shortfalls and limited political will have both contributed to delays in pipe replacement. However, even if the city council approved replacement and sufficient funding were available, excessive bureaucracy would still hinder timely replacement. 

Labor Capacity, Outsourcing, and Project Delays 

One contributing factor is that Los Angeles’s public sector suffers from persistent workforce shortages. As a result, the city outsources work to the large private corporations.

However, many of these contracts lack enforceable completion deadlines, reducing incentives for timely delivery. Furthermore, splitting the management of such projects between the public and private sectors allows for delayed communication and oversight, further stalling completion times. Los Angeles’s infrastructure challenges go beyond its water system. For example, the L.A. River Path Project, an eight-mile river path connecting Elysian Valley and Maywood, was initially projected by LA Metro to be completed in 2027 (Macías, 2025). However, LA Metro officials now estimate completion in 2030, with projected costs over $1 billion, nearly triple the original $365 million estimate (Macías, 2025). Metro officials attribute these delays to the project’s need to cross over and under thirty bridges and navigate through both public and private land. However, these factors alone do not fully explain the delays. While public sector inefficiency is not the only reason for Los Angeles’ infrastructure challenges, it is a significant contributing factor. Public sector staffing shortages and outsourcing of labor to the private sector, both examples of bureaucratic inefficiency, might play a considerable role in these outcomes. More broadly, the city government has struggled to complete several infrastructure projects on time and within budget. Nearly a century ago, the Hoover Dam, built from 1931 to 1935, was completed three years ahead of schedule and under budget (Shtemenko, 2021). The dam is 726 feet in height and 1,244 feet in length, with its base thickness of 660 feet, longer than two football fields (Gray Line Las Vegas, n.d.; accessed December 2025). The Hoover Dam differs substantially from a modern river pathway in scale, location, and the construction and labor standards under which it was built. However, this contrast highlights how a city can struggle to complete eight miles of pathway while a large-scale engineering project was completed ahead of schedule. In part, this can be explained by workforce capacity: at its peak, 5,251 workers were present at the construction of the Hoover Dam daily (Travel Nevada, n.d.; accessed December 2025). This level of staffing enables rapid physical construction. Ultimately, project timelines are heavily influenced by workforce capacity and on-site labor availability. Therefore, labor shortages and contracting arrangements that lack time-based incentives make prolonged project timelines more likely. 

Government Structure and Municipal Fragmentation in Los Angeles Municipal Fragmentation and County Governance 

To develop a nuanced understanding of excessive bureaucracy in Los Angeles, it is necessary to examine the city’s historical and structural governance conditions. Los Angeles’s bureaucratic challenges stem in part from its history of rapid growth and extensive municipal diversification. This diversification emerged as communities sought reliable access to essential public services, such as health care, fire protection, and public safety, as Los Angeles County’s population expanded (Holmes, 2018). When Los Angeles County was established in 1850, the City of Los Angeles was able to provide these services independently and chose to incorporate as its own municipality. This distinction is significant because cities within Los Angeles County maintain their own city councils and mayors responsible for day-to-day governance (Holmes, 2018). Although every city in Los Angeles County operates under the county’s jurisdiction, substantial differences exist among them. For example, Monrovia, a suburban city with a population of approximately 38,000 (World Population Review, 2025), is significantly smaller than the City of Los Angeles, which has a population of nearly four million (World Population Review, 2025). While local governments share similar administrative responsibilities, smaller cities tend to rely more heavily on county support, whereas the City of Los Angeles largely operates independently. Other communities that incorporated as independent cities include Long Beach, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Glendale, and Pasadena (Holmes, 2018). By contrast, some communities, such as Hollywood and Echo Park, were incorporated within the City of Los Angeles (Holmes, 2018). Additionally, some communities never experienced sufficient growth to incorporate as cities and therefore remained unincorporated areas, including Altadena and Marina del Rey. These unincorporated areas fall directly under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. This high degree of municipal diversification often results in excessive bureaucratic complexity. When the county undertakes infrastructure projects, it must coordinate with all affected cities and their respective departments. Without strong coordination, duplicative efforts and disputes over jurisdictional authority frequently arise, resulting in significant delays. At the same time, the county must provide essential services to all unincorporated areas, often stretching its administrative capacity. Although Los Angeles County plays a significant role in regional governance, this analysis focuses primarily on the City of Los Angeles for clarity and consistency. As the county’s largest municipality, the city provides a useful case study for understanding how bureaucratic structures affect efficiency in large, complex urban governments. 

Executive–Legislative Power Dynamics in Los Angeles 

Beyond municipal fragmentation, excessive bureaucracy in Los Angeles is also shaped by the power dynamic between the mayor and the city council. Although the mayor of Los Angeles holds significant authority, the position wields less power than mayoral offices in cities such as Chicago or New York City (Arleta Neighborhood Council, 2022). The mayor’s primary powers include proposing and signing budgets, appointing commissioners, removing city officials, and declaring states of emergency with city council approval (Arleta Neighborhood Council, 2022). During declared emergencies, the mayor may temporarily reduce bureaucratic barriers by suspending regulations and accelerating contract approvals (City of Los Angeles, 2022). However, such emergency powers do not address the structural sources of excessive bureaucracy or local challenges. Given the limited extent of the mayor’s power, the 14-member city council determines all other areas of policy under the jurisdiction of the city. While a strong legislative branch serves as an important check on executive power, it often struggles to respond swiftly to complex issues such as excessive bureaucracy. This is partly because legislative bodies are influenced by political sentiment and require substantial time to draft, negotiate, and debate legislation. The limited role of the executive branch further complicates Los Angeles’s already complex patchwork of municipal governments. As a result, comprehensive action to remove antiquated regulations, clarify jurisdictional authority, initiate public sector hiring, and pursue structural reform is often delayed. 

Case Study 1: Permitting and Departmental Fragmentation 

One critical example of excessive bureaucracy in Los Angeles is its complex and inefficient permit system. Although the system faced backlogs and structural inefficiencies before the L.A. wildfires, these disasters exacerbated existing problems and further exposed the costs of excessive bureaucracy. For context, the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County have different permit systems meant to serve their respective jurisdictions. Although these systems differ in structure and population, they face similar administrative challenges. Accordingly, this section refers to both the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County unless notable differences require distinction. In the City of Los Angeles, residents may be required to obtain up to nine distinct permit types, including building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, grading, fire sprinkler, green building, elevator, and disability access permits (Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety, n.d.; accessed December 2025). By contrast, Los Angeles County issues only three permit types: express, work exempt, and general permits (Los Angeles County Public Works, n.d.; accessed December 2025). The express permit is used for the simplest home improvements, such as replacing an air conditioner (Los Angeles County Public Works, n.d.; accessed December 2025). The work exempt permit is used for small home improvement projects that do not require significant labor, such as making moderate changes to one’s driveway (ICC Digital Codes, 2019). General permits apply to large-scale projects, such as home reconstruction, and typically require the longest approval timelines due to mandatory inspections (Los Angeles County Public Works, n.d.; accessed December 2025). In “A Comprehensive Guide to Navigate the Los Angeles Construction Permitting Process,” Ben-Haim (2024) outlines the steps required to obtain a permit in the City of Los Angeles. Applicants must first understand applicable zoning laws, environmental requirements, and legal standards. Applicants must then compile documentation, including architectural plans and property surveys for the proposed project. After doing so, the developer or homeowner can submit those documents to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, or LADBS, for approval (Ben-Haim, 2024). In Los Angeles County, applications are submitted to the Department of Public Works (Los Angeles Public Works, n.d.; accessed December 2025). Inefficiencies emerge during the review and approval phase. Depending on project scope and permit requirements, review may involve multiple departments, including the Department of City Planning, the Los Angeles Fire Department, and the Bureau of Engineering (City of Los Angeles, n.d.; accessed December 2025). This is similar for those living in Los Angeles County (Los Angeles Public Works, n.d.; accessed December 2025). Due to significant departmental fragmentation, this process can take several months to over a year to complete (Schon Tepler, n.d.; accessed December 2025). At the same time, this process can cost homeowners hundreds to thousands of dollars (Jacobson, 2025). These delays are further extended by budget constraints the city faces, which limit staffing levels and restrict modernization of the application process at the Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety (Somers, 2025). While some may argue that extensive bureaucratic oversight prevents illegal practices, it likely prolongs the permit approval process unnecessarily. Ensuring safety and expediting approvals are not mutually exclusive. Despite existing departmental fragmentation, the permit process can likely be simplified within the current framework. Proposals to merge all departments into a single authority or eliminate permit distinctions entirely would likely be politically unrealistic. More broadly, the permit system reflects deeper structural issues, including duplicative authority and chronic public sector staffing shortages. Nevertheless, the overall permit approval process can be significantly expedited through targeted structural reforms. 

Case Study 2: Public Sector Workforce Shortages and Administrative Capacity

‍One of the most important requirements for quick permit approval and infrastructure development is operational capacity, which ultimately depends on a productive public sector workforce. Therefore, a significant share of Los Angeles’s infrastructure inefficiency can be attributed to persistent workforce shortages. It is important to note that workforce shortages themselves are not inherently bureaucratic. However, excessive bureaucracy, particularly in hiring practices, exacerbates these shortages. When departments face budgetary constraints resulting from deficits or limited political will, bureaucratic systems become strained, as they depend on adequate funding to function effectively. This is evident in Los Angeles’s $1 billion budget deficit in the 2025-2026 fiscal year (Walters, 2025). Due to multiple factors, including the L.A. fires, annual revenues decreased, causing an initial deficit projection of $600 million to grow to $1 billion (Walters, 2025). However, Los Angeles's budgetary challenges date back to 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this period, the city council relied on federal aid and budgetary reserves to approve sustained increases in public spending (Walters, 2025). As the global economy slowed in 2020 and revenues declined, Los Angeles implemented an early retirement program across city departments, resulting in more than 2,000 employees leaving the workforce. When federal aid expired, the city faced deficits that could no longer be sustained through reserves alone (Walters, 2025). These fiscal decisions had lasting consequences for Los Angeles’s public sector workforce. Before the pandemic, vacancy rates at most departments were at 10%, with the exceptions of the Department of Power & Water, L.A. World Airports, and the Harbor Department (Stoltze, 2023). After the pandemic, vacancy rates rose sharply to 17.4%, representing 9,786 unfilled positions citywide (Stoltze, 2023). Higher rates of vacancy can be seen at the Bureau of Street Lighting with 32%, the Recreation and Parks Department at 23%, and the Sanitation Department at 21% (Stoltze, 2023). These conditions are projected to worsen as Los Angeles enters a fiscal emergency (Los Angeles Personnel Department, 2025). LA Targeted Local Hire, a key pipeline for filling public sector positions, reports that hiring will be “very limited” (Los Angeles Personnel Department, 2025). As a result, workforce shortages are highly likely to increase, creating even more inefficiency and putting heavier burdens on those who are already working. Although remaining employees may receive overtime pay, backlogged systems often create stressful work environments with unrealistic workloads. This often leads them to leave the workforce, further contributing to high vacancy rates. As experienced employees exit the workforce, a growing share of positions is filled by less experienced personnel. Moreover, Los Angeles’s hiring process is slow, requiring applicants to navigate individual departments to locate open positions (Stoltze, 2023). As hiring delays persist and workforce experience declines, wait times increase, and service quality deteriorates. Ultimately, significant workforce shortages, when paired with budgetary constraints, tend to highlight excessive bureaucracy. This contributes to a continuous cycle of high vacancy rates, long wait times, and reduced quality of service. This dynamic is further illustrated by the length of the public sector hiring process. In his report A Hire Calling: Modernizing Recruitment and Hiring in Los Angeles, City Controller Kenneth Mejia (2018) reports that the average time to hire a city employee is approximately 7.5 months. Of this period, an average of 98 days is spent opening application portals, followed by an additional 129 days compiling lists of qualified candidates. He attributes this to the fact that “too much of the process is bureaucratic” and the hiring process is “overly restrictive” (Mejia, 2018). Because of excessive bureaucracy, the hiring process is prolonged, which further bottlenecks Los Angeles’s already overstretched workforce. Meanwhile, demand for public services does not decline. This leads to the city outsourcing its labor to the private sector to help complete critical functions. 

Case study 3: Outsourcing, Contracting, and Parallel Bureaucracies 

Even with a stable budget and a strong public sector workforce, infrastructure projects and public services are not guaranteed to be managed efficiently. Some non-essential tasks can be delegated to non-profit organizations or the private sector. Therefore, this case study evaluates outsourcing not on ideological or economic grounds, but in terms of administrative practicality. Outsourcing contracts to the private sector might not be as efficient as some might think. This is because the private sector, driven by profit, and the public sector, focused on improving the public good, pursue different objectives that often conflict when responsibilities are shared. In practice, this arrangement creates a separate system of governance, a parallel bureaucracy, in which coordination expands into ongoing negotiation and oversight, or the absence of it. This dynamic can be seen with the city’s use of Task Order Solicitations (TOSes) with private-sector firms (Los Angeles City Clerk, 2024). For example, in 2014, a TOS was given to Tetra Tech, an engineering consulting firm, to inspect Los Angeles’s aging sewage infrastructure and provide recommendations to the city government (Los Angeles City Clerk, 2024). In 2016, the TOS was extended by two years, and Tetra Tech was awarded $2.6 million in total (Los Angeles City Clerk, 2024). This is just one of many contracts given to private consulting firms. From stormwater assessments to brownfield inspections, the Bureau of Sanitation issued TOS contracts to 86 private consulting firms, totaling $125 million (Los Angeles City Clerk, 2024). This reliance on outsourcing, contract extensions, and consultants strengthens the role the private sector plays in carrying out public services, further entrenching these parallel bureaucracies. This is particularly important because, although these bureaucracies are not conventional public-private partnerships (PPPs), they have similar power dynamics. PPPs, contrary to what they are often intended to do, tend to increase costs and delay completion times (Medium, 2023). This stems from a multitude of factors, many of which can be traced back to the fact that the private sector seeks to maximize profit. Most firms within this network are large, established companies, as prestige, legacy, and prior experience are often prerequisites for qualification. First, an announcement is given to the Los Angeles Business Assistance Virtual Network, a collection of private corporations and firms that have been approved by the city to carry out tasks related to construction and other professional services (ProcureLA, n.d.; accessed December 2025). However, it is important to note that most of the businesses and firms in this network are large in size due to prestige, legacy, and experience that are often necessary to be viewed as qualified. Once a task is announced, firms submit bids, and the city awards the contract based on “best value,” weighing experience and reputation against proposed costs (ProcureLA, n.d.; accessed December 2025). This process helps explain the negative effects commonly associated with public-private partnerships. Although firms compete for contracts, they are typically large corporations, limiting meaningful competition and resulting in repeated awards to the most established companies. For instance, Tetra Tech, a firm with over 25,000 employees and experience across more than 100,000 projects, was awarded 14 of the 86 TOS contracts, a figure comparable to other major firms (Los Angeles City Clerk, 2018). This level of consolidation and lack of competition allows private consulting firms to take advantage of the city’s significant budget and labor shortfalls and use their leverage to maximize their payments (Medium, 2023). When the same firms repeatedly receive contracts, these parallel bureaucracies become inefficient and ultimately benefit the private sector more than the city government. Contracts are primarily awarded based on legacy and experience, as these firms are perceived as the most reliable. However, under the current system, doing so does not provide an incentive for awardees to complete their tasks efficiently. Although these firms have long track records, contracts that lack enforceable deadlines and provide upfront payment offer few mechanisms for accountability. Ultimately, outsourcing contracts to private consulting firms likely does not increase efficiency or reduce costs; it creates a parallel version of bureaucracy that highlights weak governance and demonstrates a low level of accountability. The problem is not necessarily the fact that contracts are being outsourced, but the current process tends to lack proper oversight and ends up enriching the same corporations. Because these parallel bureaucracies disproportionately benefit private firms, public funds are diverted from city operations, further deepening budget shortfalls. At the same time, the quality of services and overall efficiency decrease, since contracting with a private corporation and a city leaves room for delays in communication. Although the City Clerk’s report spans multiple years and these contracts represent a limited share of overall expenditures, reducing reliance on profit-driven partnerships could nonetheless reduce unnecessary costs.

Policy Recommendations 

Although each example of excessive bureaucracy in Los Angeles is distinct, the proposed solutions fall into two broad categories: structural and procedural reforms, and public sector capacity reforms. 

Structural and Procedural Reforms 

Beginning with structural and procedural reforms, the issuance of permits can be simplified and expedited to achieve maximum efficiency. Permits serve a critical function by minimizing risks to personal safety and property while ensuring compliance with zoning laws (e-PlanSoft, n.d.; accessed December 2025). It is also necessary to distinguish between residential and industrial construction, as industrial projects typically pose higher safety risks due to the nature of their operations. If risk mitigation is the primary purpose of permits, the city can simplify the types of permits while maintaining safety standards. Given that Los Angeles County issues only three permit types, express, work exempt, and general, the City of Los Angeles’s nine residential permit categories are likely unnecessary (Los Angeles Public Works, n.d.; accessed December 2025). Therefore, in its permit applications, the City of Los Angeles should distinguish between residential and commercial/industrial projects. Residential projects should be eligible for the county’s three-permit framework, while commercial and industrial projects would continue to require specialized permits. To further expedite permit approvals, the City of Los Angeles should establish a Permit Authorization Agency, an interdepartmental body designed to coordinate reviews within the existing framework. It would be comprised of civil engineers, permit reviewers, architects, and other professionals who engage with the permit process. These individuals would remain within their existing departments, such as Public Works, Engineering, or Building and Safety, while taking on dual roles focused on expedited review, inspections, and interdepartmental coordination, with adjusted workload expectations to prevent burnout. Following this line of thought, the entire approval process would be moved into this agency, so the burden does not fall solely on the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. This agency would reduce communication delays and duplicative authority across departments. Given that applicants already navigate complex zoning requirements and documentation standards, these reforms would not meaningfully weaken regulatory safeguards. Therefore, this new agency should make an internal distinction between core environmental and safety regulations and less significant ones. Applicants who satisfy a checklist of core environmental and safety requirements should be eligible for expedited approval. One might argue that doing this would lead to a lack of enforcement of certain regulations. However, most residential applicants are homeowners seeking to rebuild or improve existing properties. For instance, it is a common practice for homeowners to hire contractors to apply for permits (Pawlukiewicz, 2024). Contractors are trained professionals familiar with zoning and regulatory requirements and are therefore likely to submit compliant applications. Beyond permitting, excessive bureaucracy can also be addressed through regulatory reform. Regulatory Guillotines, or the process of rapidly reviewing and cutting antiquated or ineffective regulations, have shown success in countries such as South Korea, Sweden, Russia, and Croatia (Jacobs, Cordova & Associates, n.d.; accessed December 2025). Los Angeles could implement a similar model by establishing a temporary Regulatory Review Commission composed of professionals familiar with the city’s regulatory framework. They would not cut regulations on their own, but they would be given a high level of authority to review any regulations, determine their efficacy, efficiency, and relevance, and then make a recommendation. If the commission recommends repeal, the relevant department would be required to justify the regulation, or the city council would vote on its removal. Any regulations cut would have to be voted on by the council. The goal is to remove outdated or ineffective regulations that unnecessarily restrict the public sector, private sector, or nonprofit organizations. However, there are some areas in which oversight should be increased, such as current procurement regulations. As discussed earlier, many of the contracts that the city has with the private sector lack proper oversight, creating parallel bureaucracies. Departments should require firm completion deadlines and award payment on project completion. By doing so, companies are incentivized to complete the project promptly. Now, legacy firms could still be awarded contracts, since they often have long track records of results; however, by attaching time deadlines, the benefits of legacy firms can be preserved while the tendency to be inefficient is reduced. 

Public Sector Capacity Reforms 

Moving to public sector capacity reforms, effective bureaucracies must address both the demand and supply of the public sector workforce. First, Los Angeles should transfer, partially or wholly, some of its services to non-profit organizations. For example, the Department of Aging aims to provide nutritional, transportation, and caregiver support services to senior citizens (Department of Aging, n.d.; accessed December 2025). One of their primary services is free, door-to-door transportation for senior citizens in conjunction with the county. While these services are valuable, they do not necessarily need to be administered directly by the city to remain effective. For instance, the free transportation that some senior citizens receive could be managed by the Department of Transportation, allowing for more centralized control over the operation. The Department of Aging’s most recent budget was $11.5 million, or 0.09% of total city spending (City of Los Angeles, 2025), a portion of which could be reallocated to nonprofit organizations to expand outreach without disrupting services. Furthermore, since these non-profit organizations are already on the ground serving senior citizens, such operations might be conducted more efficiently than by a bureaucratic government. Under this model, service quality is maintained, administrative burdens are reduced, and personnel can be reallocated to higher-need departments. Importantly, this approach would not expand the role of for-profit providers or delay service delivery. A similar initiative might also work with the Community Investment for Families Department and the Youth Development Department. Turning to the public sector workforce, the city should prioritize filling vacancies without significantly straining resources. First, the application process should be simplified. Instead of having applications at each department, there should be one job portal that spans all departments and connects applicants to their respective departments. Second, in every annual budget, there should be a Workforce and Vocation Fund that appropriates funding for long-term educational pathways and filling vacancies in especially bottlenecked departments as soon as possible. To ensure resources are being dedicated towards this fund, it should be required for the city to put 2.5% of its total expenditure into this fund. With total expenditures of $12.9 billion (City of Los Angeles, 2025), this would amount to approximately $332.5 million. For comparison, this is similar to the $290 million given to the Parks & Recreation Fund or the $353 million given to the Capital and Technology Improvement Expenditure Program (City of Los Angeles, 2025). The appropriate funding of this fund would allow critical departments, such as the Bureau of Engineering, to hire more workers and fill vacancies. This would reduce reliance on private contractors, improve coordination, and minimize inefficient parallel bureaucracies. The fund would also support coordination between the California State University system, the University of California, and the City of Los Angeles. Through media campaigns, in-person events, and scholarships, the city can attract future civil engineers, electricians, and other high-demand professionals. Over time, this would build a public sector workforce capable of completing infrastructure projects internally and on schedule. Ultimately, the city’s bureaucratic framework can be efficient and effective if there is a strong public sector workforce. 

Implementation 

For these proposals to translate into reality, they must be implemented within the existing government framework. Therefore, the city council will pass many of these proposals, while the mayor and her departments will implement them. Accordingly, implementation can be divided into three phases: immediate, medium-term, and long-term. 

Phase I: Immediate Reforms 

The first phase consists of proposals that require limited resources and can be implemented quickly. Within one year, the city council can pass legislation to establish the Permit Authorization Agency, launch a fast-track permitting system, implement procurement and contracting reforms, create a universal job application portal, and establish the Regulatory Review Commission (RRC). Once the council approves these proposals, the mayor will appoint the leadership of the Permit Authorization Agency and the Regulatory Review Commission. At the same time, departments will begin reallocating personnel, enacting procurement reforms, coordinating on the job application portal, and preparing to work with the RRC on retaining or removing regulations. Any disputes or implementation roadblocks would be adjudicated by the mayor and department heads, consistent with the approved legislation. 

Phase II: Medium-Term Reforms 

The second phase, lasting an additional two to three years, would involve a second round of legislation addressing permit simplification, the transfer of selected services to nonprofit organizations, and the establishment of the Workforce and Vocation Fund. This phase is largely executive-driven, with department heads and the mayor responsible for reallocating responsibilities and transitioning services to other departments or nonprofit organizations. The mayor will also play a central role in coordinating with the CSU and UC systems to expand educational pathways into public sector employment. During this phase, the council should begin voting on regulatory repeals and continue this process into phase three. If phase two stalls, council members may issue formal recommendations to the mayor outlining more efficient implementation strategies. 

Phase III: Long-Term Evaluation 

Phase three, lasting an additional three to five years, would focus on completing remaining reforms and evaluating outcomes and safeguards. Should services that went to non-profit organizations become disrupted, the city could leverage existing services to fill gaps, increase auditing on such organizations, and/or increase subsidies for these organizations. If reliance on parallel bureaucracies persists, the council should increase funding for the Workforce and Vocation Fund or issue recommendations to the mayor to strengthen public sector recruitment. 

Conclusion 

Los Angeles’s challenges with bureaucracy are complex, particularly when considering its governmental structure and competing definitions of bureaucracy. Nevertheless, the city’s aging infrastructure, reliance on parallel bureaucracies, and difficulty responding effectively to the aftermath of the L.A. wildfires underscore the urgency of reducing excessive bureaucracy. Ultimately, one of the most important drivers of societal progress is the continued expansion and modernization of infrastructure. That requires a strong public sector workforce and efficient government, regardless of issues with the institutional framework. Los Angeles, however, has struggled to meet this standard. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a contraction of the public sector workforce, and fiscal decisions that followed prevented a full recovery. At the same time, private sector consulting firms took on more responsibilities, creating parallel bureaucracies that lacked proper oversight and disproportionately benefited the private sector. This pattern of inefficiency extends beyond infrastructure and is also evident in the permitting system. The permit system faces a backlog of cases and is often caught between conflicts over duplicative authority as well as communication delays. Altogether, these issues demonstrate the city’s broader struggle with excessive bureaucracy. But it does not have to be this way. The permit system can be simplified through smarter governance, private consulting firms can be held accountable through procurement reforms, and the public sector’s strength and productivity can be built up again. Under such reforms, projects like the L.A. River Path can be completed on schedule, permit applicants can receive timely approvals, and residents can begin rebuilding their homes. At the same time, the City of Los Angeles can reduce its dependence on legacy consulting firms. When infrastructure is built efficiently and communities are restored, modern projects need not appear so distant from past engineering achievements like the Hoover Dam. Ultimately, ensuring this progress begins with restoring dignity to the communities affected by the L.A. wildfires, starting with timely and accessible permits.

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