Council at ease over budget

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Councilwoman Norma Glover said she worries about it

every year.

Tonight, she and her City Council colleagues are scheduled to adopt

Newport Beach’s budget for the 2001-2002 fiscal year, which begins July

1.

This time, Glover said, with estimated revenues of $136.9 million and

proposed expenditures of $135.5 million, City Manager Homer Bludau was

“pretty frugal” and, generally speaking, had set her at ease.

Others, such as Councilman Steve Bromberg, agreed and said they liked

the document.

“It’s a lot of money, no question about it,” said Bromberg, who’s

going through his first budget review as a councilman. “But that’s what

it takes to run the city.”

The budget, which makes up three inch-thick binders, serves as a

general road map for the city’s income and spending throughout the year.

“I always refer to the budget as a plan,” said Dennis Danner, the

city’s administrative services director and top finance official. “But

plans change.”

Sometimes, those changes can be hefty -- city officials might get

large grants during the year that they didn’t foresee or decide to spend

a significant sum of money to deal with issues, such as the $3.7 million

council members recently set aside to fund a public awareness campaign

regarding the use of the former El Toro Marine air base, Danner said.

This year, California’s energy crisis might create a problem. While

several departments have requested funds to cover an electricity price

increase of about 10%, city officials have not recommended setting aside

money in the overall budget.

“There is some money in there, but probably not enough,” Danner said.

“We’re still taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, unless the council tells

us to do otherwise.”

That might happen at tonight’s meeting, with several of the city’s

elected leaders saying they didn’t feel comfortable leaving things at

that.

“I think that’s still an area where I do have some concern,” said

Mayor Gary Adams.

Bromberg added he favored a more proactive stance.

“We will have an energy issue and that we’ll have to deal with,” he

said. “We need to account for that now rather than later.”

Glover also said city officials maybe should set aside a sum of money,

but added that lower natural gas prices might help solve the problem.

“We may have missed the bullet,” she said.

Adding another 14 positions to the city’s work force of 728 was

another proposal that didn’t sit too well with Glover during budget study

sessions.

“I am still trying to justify that in my mind,” she said. “I think the

economy is probably going to be fairly strong. But we don’t want to

position ourselves where we end up hiring these people and a couple of

years later have to lay them off.”

Councilman John Heffernan said that he hadn’t been able to make up his

mind about the budget nor a check list of about $6.4 million in projects

council members are expected to vote on separately.

But “I’m the odd guy out on this show,” he said. “I don’t know whether

my opinion’s really meaningful.”

Heffernan, who along with Councilman Gary Proctor also is in his first

budget review, added that he still wanted more information on the city’s

reserves policy and how it compares to other cities.

Councilmen Dennis O’Neil, Gary Proctor and Tod Ridgeway could not be

reached for comment Monday. Proctor is out of town and will not be at

tonight’s council meeting.

Budget highlights

City revenue

Property taxes $28.7 million

Sales taxes $20.9 million

Hotel taxes $8.4 million

Business licenses $2.1 million

Parking fines $2.15 million

Water services $17.16 million

Total revenues $136.9 million

City expenditures

Police $26.97 million

Fire $18.8 million

Public Works $17.6 million

Community services $7.65 million

Total city operations $86.14 million

Capital improvements $34.87 million

Total expenditures $135.5 million

* Source: Newport Beach City Hall. Note that not all the revenue and

spending is included.

Checklist highlights

Balboa Island Fire station $350,000

City facility lighting retro fit program $125,000

San Miguel pavement overlay $315,075

Ford Road pavement overlay $235,890

Bonita Creek Park landscaping $400,000

Newport Harbor pump rehab $ 70,936

Fire station modernization $146,369

General plan update, airport area $ 84,769

Major Maintenance, Dover Drive $199,006

Major Maintenance, San Miguel Drive $404,282

Even if council members approve all items on the checklist, the city

still has about $150,000 to $200,000 in unallocated funds, Danner said.