HUNTINGTON BEACH : Budget Task Force to Present Proposals

After two months of study, a budget advisory committee on Monday will present to the City Council its preliminary plans for eliminating the city’s projected $6.5-million deficit for 1992-93.

The 7 p.m. meeting will be the Budget Review Task Force’s first opportunity to discuss its initial proposals with council members since they established the citizens’ advisory group in September.

Because of the city’s $1.4-million deficit this year, another shortfall predicted next year and prolonged fiscal woes expected years into the future, city officials are carrying out a nine-month budget process in order to prepare a balanced 1992-93 spending plan next June.

The task force’s recommendations will be a key part of the budget preparation. The group is scheduled to deliver its final recommendations to the council next month.

In a memo to council members broadly outlining the task force’s initial report, Chairman Philip S. Inglee stated that the group is focusing on eliminating the projected shortfall as well as replenishing the city’s reserve account. The city’s general-fund reserves have been depleted by $4 million to balance the budget for the past two years.

In Inglee’s brief budget statement, released Friday, he said the task force is concentrating on dividing spending cuts evenly among city departments. The group will not initially recommend that any employees be laid off, he wrote.

“It is our concern that a citizen task force should not make any snap decisions that may cause job loss or dislocation until it has a better understanding” of the city government and its budget, Inglee stated.

He said the group also will recommend that some user fees be increased to raise additional revenue. He asserted that the proposed fee increases would not be “adding to the already heavy tax burden of the citizens of Huntington Beach.”