NEWPORT BEACH : City Scraps Line-Item Review for Travel Fund

The City Council has revised its decision to review travel and meeting expense requests case by case, opting instead to create a $50,000 annual fund.

In an initial review of the city’s tentative $84-million budget in June, the council voted to eliminate an $82,680 travel and meeting fund--which included $7,500 for the council--in favor of item-by-item review.

But Council members decided Monday that the line-item review was too time consuming and that some expenses were necessary to keep city employees up to date on the best ways to do their jobs. Some described the line-item review as “micromanagement.”