The City Council on Jan. 26, 2026 unanimously received and filed the quarterly report on contracts approved by the city manager and city department heads.
The report covers the period from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.
This was a Consent Calendar item. Consent items are voted on collectively, without discussion, unless a council member pulls one or more items for further discussion.
This item was pulled by District Four Councilwoman Patty Senecal.
Background
“The City Manager has the authority to approve and execute contracts up to the amount of $41,818,” according to the staff report prepared by Deputy City Clerk Brandon DeCriscio.
“Seal Beach Municipal Code Section 3.20.005 authorizes the City Manager to delegate spending authority to Department Heads,” DeCriscio wrote.
“For departments other than the Director of Public Works and the Director of Finance/City Treasurer, this authority shall not exceed $15,000 per purchase or contract,” DeCriscio wrote.
“For the Director of Public Works, the limit is established per the City’s Charter Section 1010,” DeCriscio wrote.
“For the Director of Finance/City Treasurer, other than for Finance Department expenditures which are set at $15,000, there is additional authority to authorize purchases for City Departments up to the City Manager’s established contract signing authority,” DeCriscio wrote.
The following is a list of approved contracts by agreement date, department, vendor, amount, purpose and expiration date.
• Agreement date: Nov. 17, 2025—approved by the Public Works Department—with vendor Clear Source Financial Consulting—in the amount of $21,840—purpose: for the Cost Allocation Plan—Streets, Water and Sewer Finds, in direct cost (personnel) allocation—expires: Dec. 31, 2026.
Finance Director Barbara Arenado said Seal Beach did a request for proposals to do the bid analysis.
“This group is meeting with staff now,” Arenado said.
“It’s meeting with Finance to determine how we currently allocate costs and then how we can allocate costs in the future,” Arenado said.
She said Clear Source was working with city departments. “They are going to come back and present in front of council their findings and different opportunities for the appropriate way to allocate those funds,” Arenado said.
Public Works Director Iris Lee said the cost allocation plan was for water, sewer, and streets as well. Lee said the city was currently in the fact finding stage to understand the background and operations for Seal Beach.
“The methodology is going to be fleshed out in upcoming weeks,” Lee said.
“So we are not automated with how we allocate real-time staff to those three areas, water, sewer, streets. We’re not automated,” Senecal said.
“Would this be a time study, like they’re going to sit next to somebody and see how much of their real time is used or is this going to be another summary of it should be 20% for this category?” Senecal asked.
“From what we understand it’s not going to be a time stamp, if you will. Each time somebody is tracking resources that are going to be allocated towards those three different disciplines,” Lee said.
However, there is going to be a methodology based on financial findings behind how to actually justify the percentage allocation,” Lee said.
Senecal summarized what Lee had said, saying that staff would come back with a recommendation. She said staff would not be using a computerized allocation.
Lee said that was correct.
Senecal said she wanted to be on record that she looked at the Cost Allocation Plan as an interim measure.
She said Seal Beach needs to make sure the city is delivering to residents and businesses. Senecal said the city needs to make sure Seal Beach is accurately charging staff time to the water, sewer, and street funds.
Senecal said she wanted Seal Beach to move to real time tracking of staff time.
• Agreement date: Dec. 15, 2025— approved by the Public Works Department—with vendor Southstar Engineering and Consulting, Inc.—in the amount of $30,000—purpose: On call permit review and plan check services—expires: June 30, 2027.
