Title
The City Budget Process - For the purpose of transitioning to a new budget process for the development and preparation of the Fiscal Year 2016 City Budget.
Body
CITY COUNCIL OF THE
City of Annapolis
Resolution 37-14
Introduced by: Alderman Arnett, Alderman Paone,
Alderman Pfeiffer, Mayor Pantelides
Referred to:
Finance Committee
Financial Advisory Commission
A RESOLUTION concerning
The City Budget Process
FOR the purpose of transitioning to a new budget process for the development and preparation of the Fiscal Year 2016 City Budget.
WHEREAS, current City budget is a "line item" process which is an incremental approach that merely builds upon the past year's budget without significant policy and program review; and
WHEREAS, the Government Finance Officers Association states, "the incremental approach to budgeting is not up to the financial challenges posed by the new normal of flat or declining revenuesÂ…" and
WHEREAS, other professional organizations, such as the International City Manager Association, recommends moving to a more priority based program performance based approach; and
WHEREAS, the City of Annapolis Financial Advisory Commission strongly recommends that the City promptly begin to transition away from line item budgeting to a more priority program based budget with performance standards; and
WHEREAS, the Government Finance Officers Association says "priority driven (program) budgeting is a common sense, strategic alternative to incremental (line item) budgeting that is both a philosophy of how to budget scarce resources and a structured, flexible, step-by-step process for doing so." And further that it's premise "is that resources should be allocated (in collaborative process) according to how effectively a program or service achieves the goals and objectives of greatest value to the community;" and
WHEREAS, this type of budgeting facilitates a transparent negotiation within and among the City Council, the Administration, program managers, and citizens to match service programs to resource availability; and
WHEREAS, this approach establishes a policy based decision making process that will make clearer for all what resources are available and what programs are funded; and
WHEREAS, the City has base information from the most recent Strategic Planning Documents, the Citizen Survey, the Dashboard report, and the 2014 Citizens Advisory Transition Report.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE ANNAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL that it begin taking the necessary steps to transition to a programmatic and performance based budget process as the highest priority to be addressed before actual Fiscal Year 2016 budgeting begins.
AND, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED BY THE ANNAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL that this resolution shall be effective upon the same date of adoption.
EXPLANATION
CAPITAL LETTERS indicate matter added to existing law.
Strikethrough indicates matter stricken from existing law.
Underlining indicates amendments.