Moorpark Earmarks 54% of Newly Approved Budget for Police Services

MOORPARK — Making sure that Moorpark remains one of the county’s safest cities is the key portion of City Manager Steve Kueny’s proposed budget for 1997-98.

And salvaging a possible loss of park maintenance funds, the city wants to dip into a projected budget surplus of $575,800.

Wednesday night, the City Council unanimously approved the $5.7-million spending package, which includes more than $3 million for law enforcement services.

The 1997-98 budget calls for 54% of the city’s General Fund to be spent on contracting with the county Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement services, a slight increase over the $2.9 million expected to be spent by June 30.

Also included in the spending plan is adding an administrative assistant for the 15 police officers and seven administrative staff members already assigned to Moorpark.

On Friday, the council approved using the surplus in seven areas, including transferring $100,000 to the parks assessment district account and creating a General Fund reserve account of $169,000 for maintenance of city parks in fiscal year 1998-99.

The $100,000 transfer would allow the city to keep the parks assessment at its current level of $40.16 per single-family parcel for the upcoming fiscal year, Mayor Patrick Hunter said.

The council also approved adding $200,000 to the City Hall facilities fund, bringing the total in that account to $425,000.

Cut from the budget was a plan to spend $30,000 to update the safety portion of the city’s General Plan next year. Also eliminated was $37,000 that would have been spent on an electronic direction sign for the Moorpark Public Works Department’s street division.

Martin Cole, the city’s management analyst, said the surplus came about after the city received more money from the state than originally expected for the current fiscal year and spent less than was budgeted.

That the city has such a large surplus came as a surprise to former Moorpark City Councilwoman Eloise Brown.

“Just t’aint there,” she said.

But Brown--who served from 1986-90 and for eight months last year--said that if a surplus does indeed exist, the wise thing is to hold on to it for unexpected emergencies.

“It is imperative that any surplus, if they actually have a surplus, should be put in the General Fund reserve,” she said.