Financial picture is getting better

Alicia Robinson

Although the city of Costa Mesa is balancing its 2005-06 budget with

carry-over funds from the previous year, the financial picture is

improving in Costa Mesa, officials said.

The City Council on Tuesday approved an operating budget of $103

million and $12.7 million in capital projects for the next fiscal

year.

That spending will include $400,000 for Costa Mesa United, a

community group that is raising money to build an athletic stadium

and a swimming pool at Costa Mesa’s high schools.

The council already shifted $100,000 from a development agreement

to the sports facilities but is not counting it toward a promised $1

million. The rest of the money could come in future fiscal years.

The council mulled whether to cut funding to the Drug Abuse

Resistance Education program but decided to keep it in the budget and

reevaluate the program later in the year. Council members also

decided not to slash $120,000 in dues to the Orange County Regional

Airport Authority, but they will ask authority Executive Director

Jack Wagner to explain to them what the organization has been doing

lately.

Activity for the airport group has petered out since the death of

the El Toro airport plan, City Manager Allan Roeder said.

“There are other cities that have contributed in-lieu services

like office space and in past years [gave] a small amount, but far

and away Costa Mesa has been funding the bulk of that organization,”

he said. “They haven’t really done anything in probably two years.”

The council decided to nix funding for the city’s Human Relations

Committee, which was getting about $3,700 a year.

The advisory committee’s purpose is to foster communication in the

city, and it has hosted an annual volunteer recognition ceremony.

Most recently the committee recommended that the council agree to

support a living wage.

“As people have known, I have not supported the human relations

committee, and quite honestly, there are no City Council members that

want to serve as liaison to that committee, so I could not support

funding it,” Mayor Allan Mansoor said.

After an audit is performed at the end of the current fiscal year,

the council will get a report on the city’s financial condition.

Although this budget uses $2.6 million in carry-over funds, Roeder

said he expects the audit to show the city has both spent less and

earned more than budgeted.

That happened midway through this fiscal year, when the council

learned the city would spend $2.2 million less than expected from the

previous year’s carry-over.

Mansoor said for now he’s not planning to make any cuts or look

for new revenue sources, which the council has discussed in the past.

“Overall I’m happy,” Mansoor said. “I think we’re getting closer

and closer to only spending what we take in.”