MOORPARK : Council OKs Budget Without Tax Increase

After more than a month of almost nightly meetings, the Moorpark City Council has adopted a $5.1 million general fund budget for this fiscal year.

The City Council balanced the budget at its meeting Wednesday night without raising taxes. Instead it dipped into city reserves and transferred two employees to a different agency.

“It was a long and sometimes frustrating experience, but we were able to finally balance the budget without laying anyone off,” Mayor Paul Lawrason said. “That was one of my top priorities.”

The City Council saved some money by using space in an abandoned bank building downtown for a police storefront. The building will be used by a private company that does building safety inspections for the city. The company will pay for building renovations, which will include a corner police office that will be staffed by a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department cadet and community volunteers.

Lawrason said the city avoided laying off personnel by transferring two employees to the city’s Redevelopment Agency, which has a separate budget.

Assistant City Manager Richard Hare said the city had to dip into a reserve fund to keep from raising taxes or homeowners’ fees for lighting, landscaping and park maintenance.

Lawrason and Councilman Bernardo Perez were worried that residents wouldn’t realize that the higher quality of park maintenance, landscaping and lighting is being subsidized by reserve funds.

Perez said by artificially holding down the cost of park services, the city was setting residents up for a huge jump in their property tax assessment when the city finally depletes its reserve fund.