Malibu City Council reviews FY 2025-26 budget; officials flag disaster costs, FEMA reimbursements and staffing needs

The Malibu City Council on June 17 reviewed the proposed fiscal year budget and detailed department presentations that highlighted the continuing cost of wildfire recovery, falling reserves and planned new positions to manage rebuild and resilience work.

City finance director Richard opened the council presentation, saying, “I'll be presenting the overview for you this afternoon, and I'll jump right into it.” The budget materials presented by staff show the general fund supplying the majority of city revenues, while staff emphasized that disaster response and rebuild costs have materially changed the city’s financial picture.

The council heard that disaster-related spending — including rebuild-center operations, cleanup, security and permitting support — and capital projects have reduced the city’s reserves. Staff said the city has spent about $12,000,000 on recovery services and roughly $23,000,000 in general-fund money on capital improvement projects over the past two years. The presentation noted the undesignated reserve declined from prior years to about $51,000,000 in 2025; several council members observed that without a one-time $6,500,000 transfer earlier the reserve would be about $45,000,000, close to policy minima used for bond-rating purposes.

City Clerk Kelsey reviewed the clerk’s office budget and told the council that public-records workload remains elevated: “We have 1,284 public records requests this fiscal year as of yesterday. Of that 490 have been fire rebuild requests.” Kelsey said the office added a full-time…