{"id":177608,"date":"2026-02-14T06:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T06:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177608\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T06:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T06:07:10","slug":"seal-beach-city-council-receives-city-managers-quarterly-contract-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177608\/","title":{"rendered":"Seal Beach City Council receives city manager\u2019s quarterly contract report"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The report covers the period from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This item was pulled by District Four Councilwoman Patty Senecal.<\/p>\n

Background<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City Manager has the authority to approve and execute contracts up to the amount of $41,818,\u201d according to the staff report prepared by Deputy City Clerk Brandon DeCriscio.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeal Beach Municipal Code Section 3.20.005 authorizes the City Manager to delegate spending authority to Department Heads,\u201d DeCriscio wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 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,\u201d DeCriscio wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Director of Public Works, the limit is established per the City\u2019s Charter Section 1010,\u201d DeCriscio wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 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\u2019s established contract signing authority,\u201d DeCriscio wrote.<\/p>\n

The following is a list of approved contracts by agreement date, department, vendor, amount, purpose and expiration date.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Agreement date: Nov. 17, 2025\u2014approved by the Public Works Department\u2014with vendor Clear Source Financial Consulting\u2014in the amount of $21,840\u2014purpose: for the Cost Allocation Plan\u2014Streets, Water and Sewer Finds, in direct cost (personnel) allocation\u2014expires: Dec. 31, 2026.<\/p>\n

Finance Director Barbara Arenado said Seal Beach did a request for proposals to do the bid analysis. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group is meeting with staff now,\u201d Arenado said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s meeting with Finance to determine how we currently allocate costs and then how we can allocate costs in the future,\u201d Arenado said.<\/p>\n

She said Clear Source was working with city departments. \u201cThey are going to come back and present in front of council their findings and different opportunities for the appropriate way to allocate those funds,\u201d Arenado said.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe methodology is going to be fleshed out in upcoming weeks,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are not automated with how we allocate real-time staff to those three areas, water, sewer, streets. We\u2019re not automated,\u201d Senecal said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould this be a time study, like they\u2019re 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?\u201d Senecal asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what we understand it\u2019s 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,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

However, there is going to be a methodology based on financial findings\u00a0 behind how to actually justify the percentage allocation,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Lee said that was correct.<\/p>\n

Senecal said she wanted to be on record that she looked at the Cost Allocation Plan as an interim measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senecal said she wanted Seal Beach to move to real time tracking of staff time.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Agreement date: Dec. 15, 2025\u2014 approved by the Public Works Department\u2014with vendor Southstar Engineering and Consulting, Inc.\u2014in the amount of $30,000\u2014purpose: On call permit review and plan check services\u2014expires: June 30, 2027.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City Council on Jan. 26, 2026 unanimously received and filed the quarterly report on contracts approved by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-177608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}