By, Ruel Nolledo | Freelance Writer
June 15, 2026
First 5 LA’s Board of Commissioners convened on June 11, 2026. During the meeting, commissioners approved the FY 2026-27 budget and continued their discussion on First 5 LA’s home visiting investments.
Los Angeles County Supervisor and Board Chair Holly Mitchell opened the meeting, attending remotely due to county obligations. During her opening remarks, she took the opportunity to laud the contributions of two departing commissioners: Board Vice Chair and DCFS Director Brandon Nichols, who is retiring after 27 years of public service, and L.A. County Office of Education’s Maricela Ramirez, who joins the Culver City Unified School District as its new assistant superintendent of educational services.
“I’m grateful for your service and partnership,” Mitchell told Nichols. “You never shy away when called upon to step into leadership… For me, that is an absolute reflection of your deep commitment to the lives of LA County’s children and families.”
Following a short discussion, the Board voted unanimously for Commissioner Summer McBride to take over as the new vice chair.
New First 5 LA Budget Approved
Following an informational presentation in May, commissioners approved the FY 2026-27 budget and the updated Long-Term Financial Plan (LTFP) through Resolution 2026-02. Vice President of Operations & Sustainability JR Nino, Director of Finance Raoul Ortega and Financial Planning & Analysis Manager Daisy Lopez presented the $70 million budget, a 12.5% reduction from the $80 million approved for FY 2025-26 and a step toward the $60 million stabilization point projected for FY 2027-28.
Before the budget presentation, President/CEO Karla Pleitéz Howell thanked the Board for working with staff to address the fiscal realities of the organization. First 5 LA, she explained, had been built to operate as a $140 million organization. But given the decline of Proposition 10 revenues, the organization has spent recent years developing and implementing a series of fiscal step-downs to ensure long-term sustainability.
“It takes time to look at the structure of an organization,” said Pleitéz Howell. “It’s a mismatch, operating at those levels and the reality of what we have to face. So our work for this year, and in upcoming years, is to build that $60 million organization for the future.”
The budget directs roughly $49.1 million to strategic plan work, a 10.6% reduction, and holds administrative costs to $10.9 million, or a 15.5% admin rate. Approximately $7.1 million in secured revenue is expected to offset that total, bringing the total investment from fund balance to roughly $63 million. The updated LTFP, which reflects a new seven-year lease of the building’s second floor, projects an ending fund balance of approximately $88 million in FY 2034-35. Resolution 2026-02 passed unanimously.
The full presentation can be found here.
Home Visiting: A Closer Look at the Models
Continuing the discussion begun in May, a panel led by Vice President of Community Engagement & Policy Aurea Montes-Rodriguez and Director of Family Supports Diana Careaga offered a deeper look at the home visiting models funded by First 5 LA.
Montes-Rodriguez provided a bird’s-eye fiscal picture covering a 12-year period. First 5 LA’s home visiting spending increased from $16 million in FY 2013-14 to $26.5 million in FY 2025-26 — a 66% increase — with a high of $34.3 million in FY 2017-18. That same period saw First 5 LA’s organizational budget fall from $205.5 million to $80 million, a decrease of 61%.
Careaga and Melissa Franklin, director of the Division of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health at the L.A. County Department of Public Health (DPH), spoke next to provide an overview of the three models First 5 LA funds — Welcome Baby, the organization’s own signature program, and the evidence-based Healthy Families America (HFA) and Parents as Teachers (PAT) models — and the infrastructure supporting them. Welcome Baby closes at the child’s ninth month, while HFA and PAT, which are delivered through Select Home Visiting in partnership with the L.A. County Department of Public Health (DPH), run from pregnancy through kindergarten entry and require three-year national accreditation to maintain fidelity.
Careaga said that the LA Best Babies Network (LABBN) and the Stronger Families database serve to hold the entire network together.
“Together, these investments provide a platform with a backbone infrastructure,” she said. “That has helped home visiting function as a system in the county.”
LABBN Director Sharlene Gozalians followed with more than a decade of network data. Since July 2015, she explained, Welcome Baby has reached more than 189,000 families across more than 400,000 visits, generating more than 231,000 referrals. Roughly 80% of referrals into First 5 LA’s HFA and PAT programs originate in Welcome Baby, and approximately 68% of Best Start families graduate from the program.
“This is not siloed,” Gozalians said of the three programs. “It is coordinated, connected and community-rooted.”
L.A. County Public Health Deputy Director of Health Promotion and Commissioner Priya Batra closed the presentation with the framework DPH uses to target its own home visiting dollars, beginning with four outcomes: infant mortality, maternal mortality, child welfare involvement and economic instability. Only interventions with a research record of improving those outcomes, such as HFA, PAT and Nurse-Family Partnership, are prioritized, she said.
“In a limited resource environment where we have clear disparities,” Batra said, “we need to be focusing on communities that need them the most.”
The full presentation can be found here.
Additional Matters
During the meeting, the Board also took the following actions:
- Agreements and renewals: As part of its consent agenda, the Commission approved one new agreement and 22 renewals related to several strategies and initiatives.
- New committee assignments: With the departure of two commissioners, the 2026 committee assignments were updated and presented as an information item.
- Welcome Baby hospitals: To continue Welcome Baby through June 30, 2027, commissioners approved an amendment to extend strategic partnerships with eight L.A. County hospitals in the amount of $14.3 million.
- Welcome Baby in SPA 6: The Welcome Baby hospital serving Service Planning Area 6 —the designated service region for South Los Angeles, covering communities like Compton, Watts, and Crenshaw, and one of the areas of L.A. County with the greatest need for investment — was unable to renew its agreement for FY 2026-2027. To ensure families in SPA 6 continue to have access to services, the Commission waived governance guidelines to establish a new strategic partnership with SHIELDS for Families in the amount of $809,513 through June 30, 2027, for Welcome Baby services in SPA 6.
- Legislative and policy updates: The Board received the May Revise and legislative priorities review as a written information item. The memo includes a list of First 5 LA-supported legislation, including bills focusing on Medi-Cal, CalWORKs, Dual Language Immersion and more.
- Annual report to First 5 California: The Board also received and filed First 5 California’s FY 2024-25 Annual Report.
The next Board of Commissioners meeting takes on October 8, 2026. Materials will be available 72 hours in advance at www.First5LA.org/our-board/meeting-materials.
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