City Budget Means Tight Checkbook Use, City Dumps Surfside News For Legal Ads
Written by 991KBU on June 25, 2019
Malibu’s 27 million dollar budget for next year was approved by the city council.
The city now has 100 employees.
The new budget is the first ever with funding cuts or freezes … as the formerly flush city checkbook has a low cash balance right now.
While the city’s financial reserves remain untouched … the current cash on hand is lwo because of the Woolsey Fire.
That was an 8 million dollar hit … as the city raced to remove debris … repair public property … and deal with fire-related flooding.
About 6 million dollars of that may be recoverable … from the federal government disaster aid budget.
City manager Reva Feldman cautioned the city council.
NEWSCART 75180 REVA BUDGET
“You are going to get used to hearing me say this this year, you’ve never heard me say this in 15 years, we really need to be mindful, and in the past we’ve brought items bike and appropriated money throughout the year.
“And until we have a better snapshot of our fiscal stability I’m going to really caution on bringing back items that require additional appropriations.”
City manager Reva Feldman.
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The city council also voted to switch newspapers … for legal ads.
The Chicago-based Malibu Surfside News lost the contract … after making several goofs on legal ads that cost the city government financially.
The business was switched to the Malibu Times.
Missed deadlines on legal ads caused meetings to be postponed and other problems that ate up staff time.
The legal ad budget is very small …. as most municipal legal ads are purchased by land owners.
Less than a thousand dollars in city money was involved.
Both newspapers will continue to share ad revenue from display ads … taken out by the city to publicize events.
