Council seeks cut in spending growth

NEWPORT BEACH — With the city manager set to begin budget meetings with staffers next week, council members said they’d like to cut by half the amount Newport’s spending has swelled each year since about 2003.

That would mean allowing about a 4% increase over the 2006-07 budget, rather than the 8.4% annual spending growth the council has approved in the past four years.

But council members stopped short of putting the reduction in stone with a vote and said instead they’ll wait for the finance committee to complete a full review of where city taxpayers’ money is going.

The city’s income has climbed steadily in recent years, growing by 9% a year since 2003, Councilman Michael Henn said. But Henn and the other finance committee members — Councilman Keith Curry and Councilwoman Leslie Daigle — raised the alarm when they saw regular expenses, not including one-time capital projects, keeping pace with the higher revenues.

“That’s the number that is troublesome to me and that I would like to be able to show progress against in the current budget cycle,” Henn said of the annual 8.4% spending increase.

The 2006-07 budget for salaries, benefits and operations was $128.3 million. City departments have requested $132.2 million for 2007-08, a 3% increase.

City Administrative Services Director Dennis Danner pointed out that many of the city’s negotiated contracts with employees will expire before or during the next fiscal year, so 68% percent of the salary budget “is still under negotiations.”

That will make it tougher to stick to a leaner budget. But finance committee members have said over the long term they want to come up with a budget process that will rein in costs where appropriate.

“That process will take a little while because we have to rely on objective fact-finding,” Henn said.

Other council members said Tuesday they support taking a hard look at the city budget, but they also said the city shouldn’t slack on the services residents expect. The council is expected to approve the budget in June.