Communities today struggle to develop meaningful and fiscally prudent budgets under financial pressures previously unknown. Most organizations believe that the responses they have made to the current financial crisis represent a permanent change in the way they will approach their budgeting processes. This session will explore innovative and proven tools and techniques needed to achieve both short-term relief and long-term sustainability through a unique and creative process called priority-based budgeting. Traditional responses such as across-the-board cuts, tax increases, sales of assets, pay freezes, and furloughs have not provided adequate solutions to address an organization's fiscal distress, but the question remains: what is the solution?
This session will discuss how local governments across the country have turned to priority-based budgeting to help align budgets and resources with the goals of their communities. This holistic approach to better inform budget decisions will ensure that a community identifies and preserves those programs and services that are highly valued and makes budget decisions in accordance with its findings. Priority-based budgeting has already helped 30 local governments from coast to coast deal with their fiscal realities through a step-by-step process that clearly aligns an organization's goals with the way it allocates its resources. This process was described in a 2010 Government Finance Officers Association white paper, "Anatomy of a Priority-Based Budget Process." This session will present case studies from Chandler, Arizona; Boulder, Colorado; Christiansburg, Virginia; Douglas County, Nevada; Grand Island, Nebraska; and Monterey, San José, and Walnut Creek in California, to illustrate how the process has been successfully used to address a community's unique budgetary issues.
Practice Groups 10 (Budgeting) and 11 (Financial Analysis)
Workshop Leaders: Chris Fabian and Jon Johnson, Cofounders, Center for Priority-Based Budgeting, Denver, Colorado
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