Long Beach Proposes $87.9M Budget

The City of Long Beach released a summary blueprint of a proposed $87.9 million budget for 2012-2013, representing a $4 million increase from the current spending plan, on Tuesday night.

While the budget summary boasts approximately $920,000 in net savings due to departmental spending cuts, it also includes at 11.9 tax increase, a product of paying down a $10 million deficit over three years “by way of a separate temporary inherited deficit reduction surcharge,” the summary reads, as well as a 4.1 increase to the general fund tax levy.

“The initial budget blueprint sketches out a responsible framework to return the City to balanced budgeting,” the summary reads.

It aslo states that if the city did not follow through on "spending cuts, personnel cost reductions, and necessary property tax revenue in order to reduce the staggering deficit left by the previous administration, the alternatives are even more severe: A tax hike of approximately 41%."

Both Councilmen John McLaughlin and Michael Fagen said on Tuesday that they had only received a blueprint of the budget. Fagen called it a disappoint document.

"I don't know what the administration has been doing for the last three months, but coming up with a 40 percent tax increase over three years without a real cost savings plan is just unacceptable," he wrote in an email to Patch.

Last April, the prior Republican administration proposed a $83.9 million budget for the current fiscal year.