$51-Million Budget OKd for Ventura : Government: The spending plan, which adds five police officers, calls for using cash reserves to cover a $4.5-million deficit.

The Ventura City Council passed a $51-million budget early Tuesday that adds five police officers, secures raises for hundreds of employees and spends nearly $4.5 million more than the city expects to raise in taxes.

On a recommendation from City Manager Donna Landeros, council members decided to cover the multimillion-dollar deficit by using citywide cash reserves before cutting back individual departments next year.

The budget also includes several relatively small-ticket items championed by individual council members.

“I was very satisfied that the council listened to the other council members and achieved a good balance,” Mayor Tom Buford said.

Although the plan carries a deficit, it includes huge surpluses in the city’s largest departments that could be cut to lower the shortfall next year, Landeros said. Contributing to the shortfall is a $1.1-million package of pay raises the council approved earlier this year to keep salaries competitive.

Landeros, who took over in January, recommended dipping into general reserve funds because she has not had time to draw up a budget strategy of her own.

“What you’re seeing are the initial effects of a new city manager with a different style of approaching financial issues,” Buford said.

Although he voted for the spending plan, Councilman Gary Tuttle said he is not convinced the deficit will be erased next year.

“It’s balanced because we went into deficit-spending, but councils in the past have made hard choices to build up the reserves,” he said.

Tuttle said he only voted for the budget because it includes money for libraries and an all-weather track at Ventura High School.

“What am I going to do?” he asked. “I could have said no and not gotten anything out of it.” Next year, Tuttle predicted, “the remaining council members will probably have to save their own hides by deficit-spending again.”

Prior to the discussion, Councilman Gregory L. Carson presented a plan he drafted over the weekend that designated about $325,000 for special projects. He also suggested the council deny two new full-time positions--a building inspector and a civil engineer--recommended by Landeros.

Carson failed to persuade his colleagues to reject the two full-time positions. But the budget adopted early Tuesday does provide an extra $108,000 to Ventura libraries, $50,000 for next year’s chamber music festival, $10,000 for the Rainbow Bridge playground, and $35,000 for bike-riding officers patrolling the beach.

It also designates $60,000 a year to a new downtown parking garage fund, a project the council had already agreed is needed.

“If you’re going to do studies in a city and then you adopt them, you need to make sure they’re implemented and that they don’t just sit on a shelf,” Carson said of the proposed parking garage.

Developers pitching a downtown movie theater and retail complex have said they need a $6-million parking structure to make the project work. The city already has set aside nearly $1.9 million for the garage.

Councilman Steve Bennett lost his bid to stash $75,000 for a future skateboard park, and Carson’s plan to save another $188,000 for the garage went by the wayside.

But the council did agree to set aside $178,000 for the cracked and crumbling Ventura River bike trail and $27,000 for extra clerical help.

Council candidate Brian Lee Rencher criticized the panel for what he said was its free-spending attitude, including paying too much to clean out the Ventura River bottom earlier this year.

He also challenged a recent deal to rebate nearly $20 million to owners of the Buenaventura Plaza mall, which is scheduled to undergo a $50-million expansion in the next two years.

“You’d be amazed what money can do if you watch a dollar closely,” Rencher told the council.