La Palma adopts budget for new fiscal year
By Brooklynn Wong
The city of La Palma’s fiscal year 2019-20 budget has been adopted, as of last week.
Though some questions remain, and not every City Council Member was on board, the city is in good standing, and has a small excess that it will put towards various improvements around the city.
It is estimated that there will be $11.8 million in city expenditures in the new year, with police services being the biggest chunk of that.
The city estimates to spend $8.3 million on capital improvement projects, $1.6 million of which will go towards rehabilitating medians, something the Council has discussed and wanted to do for a long time now.
Other capital improvement project ideas discussed included new medians, citywide security, City Hall improvements, city yard improvements, pavement improvements, and arterial street rehabilitation projects.
The city currently estimates having $1.3 million in general fund unassigned fund balance.
One question mark has been how long Marathon Petroleum, a big player in the city’s economy, will continue conducting its business there.
Administrative Services Director Sea Shelton, who presented the budget, said she has received no recent updates from Marathon regarding this, but their presence for the duration of the next fiscal year appears to be secure.
In the end, the Council voted 3-1 to adopt this budget.
Council Member Gerard Goedhart was the lone abstention, saying the city needs to be “very very conservative about adding stuff,” and that he was not in favor of some of the new ideas various city staff members had proposed that would affect the budget, such as a community parade and an event called International Day.
Mayor Marshall Goodman was absent. Mayor Pro Tem Peter Kim and Council Members Nitesh Patel and Michele Steggell voted in favor of the budget.
