Monterey Park Is Swimming in a Sea of <i> Black </i> Ink

For the first time in four years, Monterey Park is in the black, city officials proudly announced last week.

City Manager Mark Lewis said Thursday that the city has a $700,000 surplus for the 1989-90 fiscal year, which he attributed to austere budget measures the city took to bring it out of a financial slump.

Just last year, the city faced a $1.2-million deficit. The year before, it was $2.1 million in the red. The year before that, Monterey Park spent $660,000 more than it took in. Each time the city had to dip into its reserves to make up the difference.

But a soon-to-be-released financial audit report by the accounting firm Peat Marwick Main & Co. will show that the city has reversed the downward trend, Lewis said.

He attributed the turnabout to a series of spending cuts and fee increases he instituted in 1989, shortly after he was appointed manager in 1988. He succeeded David Bentz, who served as acting city manager after Lloyd De Llamas resigned in 1987.

“Everybody sacrificed a little,” Lewis said Thursday. “The whole city pulled together to bring about this change.”

Spending began to spiral out of control in 1986, as slow-growth sentiments on a prior City Council brought about radical zoning changes that required increased expenditures for staff time and outside expertise, Councilwoman Betty Couch said.

Mayor Judy Chu attributed the budget crunch of previous years to the fact that in 1986, the City Council voted to repeal a utility tax on residences, which resulted in a loss to the city of $800,000 a year.

Increases in fees citywide--including business license and developer fees--poured about $400,000 into Monterey Park’s coffers last year, Lewis said. In addition, the city saved about $100,000 in travel expenditures, $25,000 in supplies and $210,000 in office equipment.

Chu said now that the city is on solid financial ground, it is in good shape to pursue the Atlantic Square redevelopment project, which will require the city to invest millions of dollars before it begins to reap property and sales tax revenue from the revamped shopping mall.

“If anything, this makes me feel more confident,” she said. “We’ll have a cushion of time before we see the fruits of sales tax.”