City Approves Biggest Budget Ever : Thousand Oaks: The $100.5-million spending plan earmarks $31.4 million for the civic center complex at the Jungleland site.

The city of Thousand Oaks on Tuesday approved a $100.5-million budget for fiscal 1990-91--earmarking half the money in the city’s coffers for the Jungleland Civic Center project and other capital improvements.

The budget represents more than a 50% increase over this year’s $65-million budget. If approved, the new budget would take effect July 31.

The City Council voted 5 to 0 late Tuesday night to adopt the 1990-91 financial plan.

“This is the biggest budget in the city’s history and probably will be for many, many years to come,” City Manager Grant R. Brimhall said.

He predicted that after next year--once the capital improvements are under way--the budget will drop back to about $65 million.

Brimhall said the city has saved about $12 million during the past eight years to pay for the capital improvements, “much the same as a family saves to purchase a home or other major item.”

Although the city plans to spend $31.4 million of its general fund to build the government center at the old Jungleland animal theme park site, a variety of other capital improvements are planned, said Robert Biery, city financial director.

The city plans to spend about $4 million on street improvements, including $1.6 million for repaving city roads. The city wants to spend $400,000 on the Newbury Park Branch Library, $661,400 on the Senior and Adult Center and about $3.5 million on the expansion of the Hill Canyon Treatment Plant.

A major portion of Thousand Oaks’ revenue--about $22 million--will come from the sale of two city halls on Hillcrest Drive that the city has outgrown, Biery said. One of the building complexes is vacant and the other will be occupied until the civic center complex is completed in 1993.

The city is expecting to receive about $17 million in tax revenue--including $11.7 million in sales tax revenue.

“The city’s projected revenue picture is moderately optimistic and reflects some changes,” Brimhall wrote in a memo accompanying the budget. “One change is a leveling off of the city’s major general fund revenue source--sales tax.”

Although the city has experienced sales tax increases of up to 10% a year, Thousand Oaks officials are projecting a “modest 5% growth” in sales tax revenue for 1990-91.

“Statewide, there seems to be a flattening out of sales tax increases even though we have experienced a greater than 5% increase in the past,” Biery said. “We’re trying to be somewhat conservative. We don’t want to overestimate . . . and overcommit ourselves.”

In addition to capital improvements, the city plans to spend $440,000 on a recycling program that includes a curbside collection campaign. The city has also agreed to add two staff positions to oversee the program, Biery said.

The city’s operating budget is about $46.7 million, an increase of about $2 million over this year. The city expects to spend $16.5 million on wages for about 400 employees.

Other expenditures include: $3.9 million for the library; $2 million for the city golf course; and $2 million for landscaping and lighting throughout Thousand Oaks. The city has allocated $3 million to purchase land at Hillcrest Drive and Hodencamp Road, where the local housing authority plans to build 50 affordable homes.