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City managers have a special power to approve contracts without permission from city council members or the public, as long as the contracts are under a certain amount of money.
This maximum amount for a city manager varies for each city, with some purchasing thresholds reaching $200,000 — such as the city of Anaheim — which made the approval in 2021.
Previously, Cypress City Manager Peter Grant could only approve contracts under $25,000 — one of the lowest amounts in the county.
On Thursday, that amount will jump up to $50,000, putting Cypress on par with cities like Santa Ana and Garden Grove.
Editors’ Note: This dispatch is part of the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service, working with student journalists to cover public policy issues across Orange County. If you would like to submit your own student media project related to Orange County civics or if you have any response to this work, contact admin@voiceofoc.org.
The item was initially brought forward during the city council’s Nov. 12 meeting, which introduced increasing the city manager’s maximum signing authority to $50,000.
It was approved on Nov. 18, after a 4-1 decision in a special city council meeting. Councilmember Frances Marquez voted no.
It was finalized with a unanimous motion during a second reading approval on Dec. 9. Marquez was absent from this vote.
Cypress has a separate threshold for capital improvement projects. That cap was previously $55,000, and now it will increase to $100,000.
The increase will give the city manager more power to sign contracts without city council approval during a public meeting.
During the Nov. 12 meeting, Grant said the increase would help save the council’s time by putting fewer contracts on the city council agenda for discussion.
“Opportunity presents itself there for us to spend less time pushing paper around and more time serving the community,” he said.
Grant also explained that it previously took a considerable amount of city resources to go through the bidding process if contracts exceeded the original amount of $25,000 and that those resources could instead be used for the residents of Cypress under the increased signing authority.
Cypress’ signing authority was last updated in 1999, and some council members credit inflation and growth in the city’s budget for increasing the purchasing power.
“I think it’s very prudent that the city take a look at this, given the fact that it’s 25 years old and business models have changed progressively throughout the past two and a half decades,” Mayor Scott Minikus said at the Nov. 12 meeting. “Anybody in business knows that over the past couple of years, that this is the new business model.”
City officials emphasized that the 25-year-old policy needed to be updated, especially when compared with other OC cities.
“It’s not really a seismic shift of taking purchasing decisions away from the city council,” said Matt Burton, the city’s director of finance and administrative services. “It’s really intended to let the city council focus on policy-making and let the individual departments focus more on their primary responsibilities and purposes.”
Cypress isn’t the first city in Orange County to increase its city manager purchasing threshold.
In February 2023, Buena Park upped the signing authority of their city manager from $30,000 to $80,000 — almost triple.
In May 2023, a review by Chapman journalism students working with Voice of OC found that Cypress was one of the lowest-ranked cities for the city manager maximum purchasing threshold in Orange County.
Other low-ranking cities included La Palma, Laguna Woods and Brea, which also had thresholds of $25,000.
Cypress’ increase will bring it up to more of a mid-range amount when compared to other OC cities.
[Read: The Deepest and Darkest Pockets At Your Local City Hall]
During the Nov. 18 council meeting, Marquez expressed concerns about the increased purchasing threshold.
“We need these guardrails in place, especially given what we’ve seen at the county level and in other things that have happened in other cities,” Marquez said. “This is to ensure that even applicants are treated fairly in the contracting process.”
At the Nov. 12 meeting, Burton had previously addressed this concern, explaining that there was a multi-layer process in place to verify that applicants were treated fairly and prevent any conflicts of interest.
He stated that any purchase over $1,000 goes through a process that’s done at the department level and then moves up through finance review and approval and ultimately, the city manager.
It helps set up a process to prevent contracts from getting approved by an individual who has self-serving motives, Burton said.
Other council members thought the $50,000 amount was fair compared to how other cities operate.
High-ranking cities included Anaheim, with a threshold of $200,000, as well as Newport Beach with a threshold around $125,000 and Costa Mesa and Fullerton, both with thresholds of $100,000.
Burton emphasized that most contracts under the $50,000 threshold would be considered routine. He also explained that a higher threshold amount could allow staff to get better deals without the delay of waiting for a vote at a city council meeting.
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