La Verne staff present balanced $48.9 million FY 2024–25 budget, flag water and pension pressures

La Verne city staff on Monday presented a proposed $48,900,000 fiscal year 2024–25 budget that the city manager and finance director described as balanced only by using $1,180,000 of assigned fund balance and a set of department-level reductions and hiring pauses.

Finance Director Christy Lopez told the council the document is a proposal and can be revised: "This is just the proposed budget, so we can include anything that you may want to be changed," she said. Lopez summarized key revenue changes — a 4% property‑tax increase (about $600,000), a 2% sales‑tax uptick (about $100,000) and a 9% rise in recreation fees — but warned major cost pressures remain, notably a jump in unfunded accrued liability (UAL) payments.

Lopez said the UAL payment on the books for 2024–25 rises to $860,000 from $10,000 last year, a change she described as "a huge increase" that will materially affect the general fund. She also noted the proposed budget would add roughly $600,000 to reserves due to higher expenditures and described assigned fund‑balance recommendations the city manager…