City of Sacramento Initiates Priority Based Budgeting Process

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?meta_id=378592&view=&showpdf=1


The annual budget process includes a financial planning workshop with the City Council to consider, discuss and provide direction on the development of the proposed budget for next fiscal year.

One of the key components of this workshop is determining whether the City's budget reflects Council's priorities.

The City’s Finance Department has engaged the Center for Priority Based Budgeting to assist in aligning what the City currently has developed, as reflected in the Program Oriented Development (POD) exercise prepared by departments, with Council’s Focus Areas.  Completion of this exercise will enable the Council and constituents to understand the allocation of the City’s resources with
respect to Council’s priorities.

Walnut Creek Reflects on Experience in Priority Based Budgeting

http://icma.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=icma_1c503a321e2c47095b6ee1014e2be619.pdf&view=1&showpdf=1

Hear Walnut Creek's Lorie Tinfow in Cal-ICMA's presentation of "Budget Strategies Amidst California's Continuing Fiscal Crisis." Walnut Creek's work is truly inspiring, and they are headed into their 3rd year of Priority Based Budgeting.

With rapidly declining revenues starting in 2008, Lorie led the City’s efforts to keep the budget in balance.  Building on Walnut Creek’s history and culture of reaching out to the community and engaging city staff, she crafted an outreach approach that included a program prioritization process from the value-based Fiscal Health and Wellness Program promoted by ICMA, and created by the Center for Priority Based Budgeting.

To help set financial priorities, the approach included goal-setting by the City Council, defining and weighting the goals by the community, and then scoring City programs by City staff against the community-defined goals.  Together, the process produced a ranked set of City programs used in the development of the 2010-12 Budget.