Local News in Brief : Huntington Beach : $151-Million Budget Is Adopted by Council

A $151.8-million budget for the 1988-89 fiscal year has been adopted by the City Council.

The “status quo” budget, according to Huntington Beach City Administrator Paul Cook, reflects an increase in revenues and expenditures over last year of about 4% “spread across the board.”

A total of 12 new city employees were budgeted--about a 1% increase--and there were no significant personnel cutbacks, officials said.

City Atty. Gail C. Hutton, who lobbied residents to support her request for four new employees, got half of what she asked for. The council approved a budget that gives her a new investigator and a paralegal. She also had requested two additional attorneys. But Cook said he told Hutton that work her office could not handle would be assigned to private law firms.

One significant budgetary question mark remains for Huntington Beach, winner of a 1986 national award for fiscal reporting and planning. The city may be faced with a potential increase of about $1.5 million in refuse-collection fees because of a proposed county hike in gate fees at dumps, Cook said. The Board of Supervisors has not yet adopted a budget.

Huntington Beach and Tustin are the only two cities in the county that presently do not pass on to property owners trash-collection costs, Cook said. But he added that the city will have to do that, or cut some city services, if rates charged by the county increase.