Moorpark to Escape Substantial Cutbacks : Budget: The city is even planning to add one law enforcement officer.

Moorpark city officials said Tuesday they will be able to balance the $4-million budget for next fiscal year without dipping into reserves or imposing any substantial cuts.

“The city is in much better shape than any other city in Ventura County and certainly the county itself,” Councilman Scott Montgomery said. “There is no crisis in Moorpark. We have a tight budget, but we are able to afford the services we’ve promised our taxpayers and no one will lose a job.”

In fact, Montgomery said the city is in such good shape that it will be able to add one law enforcement officer under its contract with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

One investigator is slated to join the ranks of the force under the new budget, Montgomery said. Last year, detectives were only able to investigate 44% of the crimes in the city, solving 78% of those crimes, said Sheriff’s Lt. Geoff Dean, who supervises Moorpark police enforcement.

Mayor Paul Lawrason said years of belt-tightening have left the city in good financial shape. “I’m encouraged that I think we’re going to be able to balance it,” Lawrason said of the budget. “It’s nice to know that what we’ve come up with looks like it’s going to work.”

The City Council met Monday to begin budget deliberations and it will very likely continue in a special meeting next week, officials said.

Early estimates are that the city will take in $4.1 million in General Fund revenues over the 1993-94 fiscal year and spend just $3.8 million.

But most of the possible $300,000 surplus might be lost if the state Legislature approves Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to divert property taxes away from the city. A cost-of-living increase that the city may give its 35 employees has also not been added to the city’s anticipated expenditures.

Deputy City Manager Richard Hare said it will cost the city an additional $20,676 for each 1% raise given the employees, though the percentage of the increase has not been determined.

But while other cities grapple with reducing services and laying off employees, Moorpark has $4 million in reserves--enough to run the city for an entire year--and faces budget deliberations that promise to be relatively smooth, city officials said.

Hare said a combination of financial prudence in recent years and the fact that Moorpark incorporated only 10 years ago have resulted in the financial security.

“We have always been behind on our staffing,” Hare said, explaining that older cities that have added employees and programs over the years are now facing cuts that are unnecessary in Moorpark.

The Ventura City Council announced Monday that it was eliminating 70 jobs and imposing other cuts in an effort to trim $4.3 million from the city’s budget.

Lawrason agreed that Moorpark’s number of city employees is at a bare minimum.

“Staff is probably at an absolute minimum to conduct our business,” he said. “We look at all new positions and all new spending very, very carefully. They really have to be justified to us.”

After one or more public meetings this month, the council is expected to adopt its final budget at a special meeting June 30, Montgomery said.

“We’re reaping the benefits now of four years of hard work with budgets,” he said. “I’d like to think that we foresaw this tightening coming and prepared for it.”