A tentative city budget unveiled

June Casagrande

City Manager Homer Bludau on Tuesday gave the city council a detailed

overview of the city’s next-year budget, the first of four

consecutive study sessions on the $156-million spending plan that

council members are scheduled to vote on at the end of June.

And if Tuesday night’s talks are any indicator of things to come,

the future will include lots more jabs at Sacramento: “We really

don’t have much trust for the people of Sacramento and what they

might do to us,” Bludau said, one of about a dozen such comments on

the financial threat that the state budget crisis poses for the city.

Staff even went so far as to document their disdain as part of the

formal presentation. A slide listing 10 dangers to city revenues had

five identical, tongue-in-cheek entries: “state budget crisis.”

The state’s multibillion-dollar financial fiasco will likely force

cities to pick up some of the slack, city officials are certain,

though it’s unclear how or where. Vehicle license fees, money the

state channels back to cities, are a likely target. Though city

financial experts who predicted this shoe would drop last year were

proved wrong, they say that only increases the likelihood that it

will come down this year.

The Education Revenue Augmentation Fund was used as an example of

how the state budget picture, as Bludau put it, “gets scarier and

scarier” for Newport Beach. Since the fund was started in the early

1990s as a way for the state to force cities to pick up some of the

tab for education, Newport Beach has paid about $48 million toward

public schools.

But Newport Beach proves that sometimes it pays to be pessimistic.

By bracing the city for the worst-case scenario, and ratcheting down

spending goals accordingly, officials each year manage to present a

balanced budget that maintains a high level of city services.

“We are conservative in our revenue projections,” Administrative

Services Director and head budget guru Dennis Danner said.

For example, last year the city projected about $95.4 million in

revenues; by the end of fiscal 2002-03, that number will actually be

about $100 million.

This year, the city will plan on not getting about $2.8 million in

vehicle license fees from the state because, Danner said, that seems

the easiest place for Sacramento to go for the jugular. To

compensate, the city will plan on having only about $1.5 million of

general fund revenues for capital fund projects instead of the usual

$4 million to $5 million each year.

The budget talks are also a time when Bludau likes to lay out

staff’s top 10 priorities for the coming fiscal year, which is from

July 1 to June 30, 2004.

Topping that list is working toward creating and certifying a

Local Coastal Plan, followed by water quality and code enforcement;

the general plan update; rebuilding the Mariners Branch Library;

building a fire station in Santa Ana Heights; annexing the West Santa

Ana Heights and several surrounding areas; possibly rebuilding City

Hall; landing a good deal with cable companies; creating an employee

evaluation process; and continuing to improve the city’s disaster

preparedness.

“You certainly have been comprehensive,” Mayor Steve Bromberg

said.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.