"Going through a deep evaluation of city programs, rather than cutting across the board, seems the best and most sustainable method of budgeting," said Mayor Margaret Hornady.
"This is the most rational approach I've ever seen," she said.
Looking for answers through Program Prioritization
By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com
Published: Sunday, March 7, 2010 10:08 PM CST
Saturday was a jolting day for the Grand Island City Council -- a $1.5 million revenue shortfall to fix for this fiscal year and a $3 million problem for the coming year.
Raising taxes to completely take care of the problem didn't seem like a good fit, so the council is looking to make cuts.
But where to cut?
That's where the city's new Program Prioritization program comes in.
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http://new.khastv.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=20219&storytopic=4
Consultants Jon Johnson and Chris Fabian have been working with the council for a year to identify what the core functions of Grand Island government truly are and what programs are most meeting the needs.
The council determined last year that a safe community; quality of life; stewardship of the environment; and strategic, sustainable and maintained development are the key functions.
Now Johnson and Fabian have worked with city staff to evaluate and rank Grand Island's 350 programs to see which are most important.
They broke the programs into four quartiles -- with Quartile 1 programs being high priority, Quartiles 2 and 3 being less important and Quartile 4 being programs most likely to have reductions in funding.
"Every department has high-priority programs -- every department has some not so high," Johnson said.
The city's Utility Department scored the highest -- it's a city function supported by ratepayers, not taxpayers, it's not available by other providers, it's in high demand because everyone needs it and it meets all four of the council's priorities.
Programs such as school resource officers and dog and cat licensing scored much lower, Johnson said.
That's not to say that low-scoring programs should be cut completely, but resources into those programs may need to be reduced or new partners found that could help lower the cost to the city.
All city programs were also scored on whether they are mandated, what fees they may generate, how strong the demand is for the service and what reliance there is in the community for the city to be the provider of the service.
Full results of the scoring were not available Saturday, but Johnson and Fabian are continuing to work on the scores so that city staff and the council may use them in the upcoming budget-setting process.
Johnson said the council may direct that a 10 percent cut be given to Quartile 2 and 3 programs and a 5 percent cut to Quartile 4 programs. Any direction given should be up to the discretion of the city department head to make and explain, however, he said.
Grand Island does have $5 million of spending it's putting into Quartile 4 programs, the consultants said.
Such prioritizing because of budget constraints is not unique to Grand Island, they added.
"Governments are at the brink of what they can provide," Johnson said.
Forty-eight states have had to address shortfalls in 2010 and 43 states have reduced services, Fabian said. Nine out of 10 city finance directors reported to the National League of Cities that their cities will be less able to meet financial needs in the coming year.
The majority of cities also reported a 0.4 percent decline in revenue and a 2.5 percent increase in expenses on average, Johnson said.
That's in line with the 1.1 percent drop in revenue and the 2.2 percent rise in expenses forecast for Grand Island.
Going through a scorecard and a deep evaluation of city programs, rather than cutting across the board, seems the best and most sustainable method of budgeting, said Mayor Margaret Hornady.
"This is the most rational approach I've ever seen," she said.
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