BEVERLY HILLS: The Beverly Hills City Council...

BEVERLY HILLS: The Beverly Hills City Council has adopted a $76.6-million budget that Mayor Vicki Reynolds called conservative, with only slightly higher expenditures and anticipated revenues than last year.

Reynolds said the budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 includes “reasonable expenditures . . . that won’t deplete the level of service we pride ourselves on in Beverly Hills.”

The operating budget anticipates revenues of about $78.8 million, up about $2.2 million from last year. The increases are due to an expected $1-million increase in sales tax revenue, for a total of $12.8 million, and a $900,000 increase from business license taxes.

Funding for most of the city’s 14 departments was increased about $1 million to cover a 3% cost-of-living raise awarded to most of the 617 full-time city employees.

About $1.2 million was earmarked for tourism promotion, with the monies coming from a 2% increase in the transit-occupancy tax on hotel bills.

The budget contains $6.5 million in community assistance funding, with the bulk of the funds, $5.4 million, going to the Beverly Hills Unified School District. Included in the budget was $34.4 million in capital improvement projects.

The projects, which include water main replacements and rebuilding of a reservoir, are budgeted separately from the operating budget.

MEETINGS NEXT WEEK

* Culver City: 7 p.m. Monday, Interim City Hall, Trailer No. 1, 4095 Overland Ave., (310) 202-5851.

* Los Angeles: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 200 N. Spring St., (213) 485-3126.

* Malibu: 6:30 p.m. Monday, Hughes Laboratory, 3011 Malibu Canyon Road, (310) 456-2489.

* Santa Monica: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, 1685 Main St., (310) 393-9975.