Cerritos

The City Council has adopted a $60.5-million budget for fiscal 1985-86. Approved by the council last week, the budget is about $6.7 million smaller than last year’s.

The new budget includes $34.9 million for city operations--police protection, salaries and general maintenance--and $25.6 million for the Redevelopment Agency.

Among the projects the agency will finance in the coming fiscal year are an $8.3-million reclamation system to make waste water usable for watering parks, schoolyards and street medians and $4 million for buffer walls along the 605 and 91 freeways and the extension of Shoemaker Avenue over the 91 Freeway on the city’s east side.

John Saunders, the city’s director of internal affairs, said the reason for the smaller budget this year was the completion in recent months of several major projects. Last year, the city spent $8.5 million to widen streets, install curbs, landscape entrances and parkways and bury sewer and water lines around the 125-acre Towne Center development site across from City Hall. In addition, about half the $4.5-million expansion of the city library was paid for in last year’s budget.

Among operations, the biggest expenditure--about $3.2 million--continues to be for police protection by contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.