City of Mission Viejo, California Successfully Balances Budget with Priority Based Budgeting

Read the City's Budget Message:
http://wpean.org/assets/0/72/108/112/1449/a56eccba-c58f-4802-8766-8562031ded4a.pdf

The goal in developing the 2011-13  budget was to  avoid having to  draw down discretionary reserves to balance the budget, and given that the 2009-11 budget incorporated roughly a $1.5 million annual draw down of discretionary reserves, the need to make a significant reduction in the City’s adopted budget for 2011-13 was anticipated.

The PBB process, used by a number of agencies around the country, is designed to  better align  an agency’s budget resource allocation decisions with  community  values and the agency’s strategic goals.  The underlying premise of the approach is that across-the-board cuts that are often used in governmental agencies to achieve budget balance, are not the best approach since they put equal importance on all budget expenditures when, in fact, some activities contribute more to achieving the strategic goals of the organization than do other activities.

The City Manager developed budget reduction targets for  FY 2011/12 and FY 2012/13 for each City
department based on the results of this budget prioritization project that were proportionate to how the
department’s programs fell into the various quartiles.

Watch a Public Hearing on the City of Boulder's Discussion of Priority Based Budgeting

Boulder City Council Meeting - Oct 4, 2011 pt2

Question: How was Priority Based Budgeting (PBB) incorporated into the budget process

and where is this reflected in the 2012 Recommended Budget? What improvements can be

made to describe PBB results for future budget years?

Staff Response: This is the second year of implementation of PBB, an iterative process for

prioritizing city programs according to their contributions to a series of defined results

customized for the city of Boulder. The results defined for the city’s programs and services

(shown in the City Manager’s Budget Message, pages 33-35) are the following six

overarching objectives that reflect City Council and broader community priorities:

 Accessible and Connected Community

 Economically Vital Community

 Environmentally Sustainable Community

 Healthy and Socially Thriving Community

 Safe Community

 Good Governance

Through the PBB process, all city programs and services are categorized in an inventory of

programs by department. All programs then go through an internal citywide scoring

assessment, which is the classification of each PBB program into one of four quartiles, with

the first quartile indicating that a program has the highest influence on achieving the city’s

defined results, and the fourth quartile indicating the lowest level of influence.