Alignment has been taken to new heights in FY 2010 as the City developed its new “Budget by Priorities” process to better define the varied and numerous Municipal Core Services (along with their respective costs and revenues) provided to our constituents and comparatively evaluate their respective influence on achieving Goals and Outcomes. This process is specifically designed to provide a higher degree of understanding among decision makers regarding the scope, costs and impact of the various Core Services and better articulate how we value our services, invest in our priorities and ultimately divest ourselves of lower priority services.
The City has been operating and refining its innovative Strategic Operating Plan (SOP) since its development roughly five years ago. The SOP is not only intended to be a statement of Lakeland’s goals, values and desired outcomes that articulate what the community strives to attain, but also serves as the foundation in which the municipal organization can best align our programs, policies, procedures, human capital and resources in a coordinated fashion in support of the community’s shared vision. This alignment has been taken to new heights in FY 2010 as the City developed its new “Budget by Priorities” process to better define the varied and numerous Municipal Core Services (along with their respective costs and revenues) provided to our constituents and comparatively evaluate their respective influence on achieving the SOP’s Goals and Outcomes. This process is specifically designed to provide a higher degree of understanding among decision makers regarding the scope, costs and impact of the various Core Services and better articulate how we value our services, invest in our priorities and ultimately divest ourselves of lower priority services.
The “Budget by Priorities” approach is intended to be a more progressive budget strategy in response to fiscal restraints than traditional “across the board” budget cuts many municipalities employ in their efforts to treat budget cuts “equitably” among departments. The problem with the “across the board” approach is that all Core Services do not equally influence a City’s SOP, so one could question why certain Core Services that have a greater influence on supporting the SOP be cut to the same extent as those services that have little to no impact? In a similar fashion, household budgets are not uniformly cut in response to constrained revenues, as expenses such as mortgage payments, insurance, utilities and essential food costs are likely to remain constant, but more discretionary expenses like eating out, entertainment, etc. are undoubtedly trimmed in response to reduced household income. Revenue projections for the upcoming 3-year period assume no increases in property tax revenues, limited growth in sales tax revenues, a 2% growth in utility dividend revenues due to sales and flat revenue trends for most other revenue sources. Against the backdrop of these projected future revenue constraints, the more targeted Budget by Priorities approach served as the foundation for the following budget policies that were implemented in the development of the proposed FY 2010 Budget
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