The City Council will hear a presentation on June 4 from the Center for Priority Based Budgeting on work that has been going on behind the scenes with city departments, Volek said.
“This is probably the most significant document that the City Council works on in a given year,” Volek said at the outset of her presentation. “It is an indication of your intent to provide services, an indication of your intent for staffing and an indication of an intent to the public of what the city of Billings will look like for the coming budget year.”
Each department has broken down its operation into a series of programs, attached the cost and staffing level for those programs and ranked them by priority, Volek said. All the work will be cross-checked by other departments that will review the rankings and check their accuracy.
The Billings City Council got a first look at the 2013 budget at a work session Monday night.
City Administrator Tina Volek provided a brief overview of the staff recommendations for the coming budget year. The fiscal year begins July 1.
“This is probably the most significant document that the City Council works on in a given year,” Volek said at the outset of her presentation. “It is an indication of your intent to provide services, an indication of your intent for staffing and an indication of an intent to the public of what the city of Billings will look like for the coming budget year.”
Volek told the council that for the 11th year, no increases were given to operation and maintenance in the departmental budgets.
“Frankly, we’ve got past fat to muscle at this point,” she said.
Additional departmental requests are handled through supplemental budget requests, she said.
“Quite simply, departments have to justify to us why they want increases, rather than receiving them automatically,” she said.
The exception, Volek said, are increases in electricity and fuel costs, which for 2013 are projected to increase $233,000 and $270,000 respectively.
The total budget has increased about 10 percent over the previous year, Volek said. Anticipated revenues for all funds for 2013 total $265.9 million, Volek said, and expenditures total $275.8 million.
What appears to be a $10 million gap isn’t one, Volek said. Some of the operating funds will dip into reserves to balance their budgets. In some cases, departments are required to build in reserve funds for capital projects that will be needed in coming years. Because the money is gathered over time, the city doesn’t have to borrow money to buy equipment, Vokek said.
Capital expenditures, totaling $94.9 million, is the largest category of expense. That includes construction of roads, building the new library and other projects.
An internal committee scrutinizes all of the requests for replacement items that come before it, she said.
“I can assure you that when an item comes to this level, it has been thoroughly vetted by people who are mechanically inclined in our departments and ask tough questions about whether we actually need to replace these pieces of equipment,” she said.
One of the major initiatives the city is looking at is priority-based budgeting, Volek said. The City Council will hear a presentation on June 4 from the Center for Priority Based Budgeting on work that has been going on behind the scenes with city departments, Volek said.
Each department has broken down its operation into a series of programs, attached the cost and staffing level for those programs and ranked them by priority, Volek said. All the work will be cross-checked by other departments that will review the rankings and check their accuracy.
City Council members will have the opportunity to review and discuss all of the information before the budget is adopted.
Volek also talked about proposed fee changes in such areas as wastewater, arterial fees, street maintenance, storm sewer, among others, that would charge users in total about $30 more per year, if adopted.
The City Council will continue to hear presentations over the coming weeks from department heads about their individual budgets.
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