Monterey's Priority Based Budgeting - "the motivation to make decisions, albeit difficult ones, that are in the best interests of the residents, businesses, and visitors that we serve"

http://www.monterey.org/prioritybasedbudget/docs/110517PropBudgetFinal.pdf

The City Council was informed last spring that due to the prolonged recession coupled with increased costs the City’s General Fund still faced a structural imbalance of about $5 million, even after the substantial budget reduction measures already taken in the previous year. However, unlike many cities and the State of California, who were forced by poor planning to rush a budget reduction plan into place, this City Council directed staff to take the time to gather input from the community in order to help prioritize the difficult budget choices ahead.


This was done last fall using a Priority-based Budgeting process.

It is a consensus-based strategy developed by all department heads built on the knowledge gleaned from the Priority-Based Budgeting process and the motivation to make decisions, albeit difficult ones, that are in the best interests of the residents, businesses, and visitors that we serve.

Building Economically Resilient Communities Conference

neha2011aec.org - Building Resilient Communities

The National Environmental Health Association has created a track devoted to Building Economically Resilent Communities, at this year's annual conference in Columbus, Ohio (June 18-20).

The concept is completely unique, portraying Economic Sustainability as the confluence of a government's fiscal health (what Jon and I are working on here at the Center), a community's overall economic well-being (what you'll hear Fort Collins CFO, Mike Freeman discuss), and the environmental health of a region (NEHA's expertise).

City / county managers will be exposed to evidence that sustainability initiatives (fiscal, economic, and environmental) are literally at the root of Resiliency, as witnessed and demonstrated in these sessions. As communities today struggle to balance their budgets while preserving long-term economic growth, these sessions will demonstrate that all are achievable. Building Resilient Communities begins with a new definition of Sustainability.

For more on the sessions, click below

Christiansburg, VA Proposes FY 11-12 Budget on the Foundation of Priority Based Budgeting

Go Directly to the Town's Website at:
http://www.christiansburg.org/index.aspx?nid=455

The Center for Priority Based Budgeting also provided town staff with access to their proprietary spreadsheets and filtering systems as they work to allocate resources based on priorities. These systems will allow for closer examination of programs and services and the impact they have on town spending. They are designed to promote questioning by staff of what else can be done, who the town can possibly partner with to continue to provide the same level of service expected by the public, etc. The intent of the process is to provide a new way of looking at information and generating the conversations that need to be had in order to make tough funding decisions.

The town hopes to continue to utilize the priority based budgeting approach in the future, whether facing tough economic times or not. In addition to providing a way to completely review existing programs and services in upcoming years, it will also allow suggestions for new programs or services to be evaluated using established criteria as a means of determining whether implementing the prospective program should be a high priority for the town and our citizens.

MONTEREY PRESS RELEASE: Initial Budget Reduction Plan Presented to Public - Approach Upholds Principles of Priority Based Budgeting

MONTEREY PRESS RELEASE: Initial Budget Reduction Plan Presented to Public - Approach Upholds Principles of Priority Based Budgeting


Download Staff Presentation from City of Monterey Website at: http://www.monterey.org/prioritybasedbudget/docs/PrelimBudgetReductionStrategyFY12.pdf

“We have cut millions of dollars out of the City budget over the last two years, and there really isn’t anything left to cut that won’t be painful for our residents and our employees,” said City Manager Fred Meurer. “That is why we have worked diligently this year to get the all of our stakeholders involved in the priority-based budgeting process.”

Priority-based budgeting will move the City away from line-item budgeting and toward program budgeting. Program budgeting eventually will help the City determine the true cost of the programs it delivers; see if the fees charged, or perhaps should charge, cover the costs of a program; and build a budget for the future based on what the City can afford.

City of Grand Island Launches Into Another Year of Priority Based Budgeting with Deeper Review of Results

Grand Island's priorities remain the same > The Independent > News > Local
By Tracy Overstreet, Wednesday, April 20, 2011 10:12 AM CDT

A safe community remained the overall No. 1 city priority in a resurvey of the Grand Island City Council, but four new ideas were added to the 21 priorities the council first set two years ago. Those new priorities were immigration control, regional travel/airport development, rightsizing government/outsourcing, and having representation for the city in higher government. The new ideas were write-ins to the survey the council took over the weekend as part of the "$500 exercise" for the city's program prioritization process.

Program prioritization is a budgeting mechanism that begins with asking how much money the city has available, as opposed to how much money it needs, said consultant Jon Johnson.

He and Chris Fabian of the Center for Priority Based Budgeting in Denver began working with the council in 2009 to determine what the city's core functions were and how best to allocate the city's limited resources to those functions.

Christiansburg officials pleased with budget survey response

Christiansburg officials pleased with budget survey response Community Current - roanoke.com: "Christiansburg officials pleased with budget survey response
The Town of Christiansburg received a successful return rate on its budget survey, and other localities took note, spokeswoman Becky Wilburn said Tuesday.

In a presentation to council, Wilburn said she received 1,152 survey responses, which represents 6.6 percent of the town’s 2010 adult population.
Christiansburg paid The Center for Priority Based Budgeting $22,000 to help create a survey intended to aid council in putting together the budget.

Last month, residents received a survey that acted as a simulated exercise, in which they were “given” $100. The residents were asked how they would spread the money among various town needs, deciding which are most important.

The number of responses Christianbsburg received was rated second among surveys created by the company, Wilburn said. The locality with the most received responses from 1,300 people but had a population five times that of Christiansburg, she said.

Because of the town’s success with its survey, Wilburn said she’s been contacted by other localities interested in how they got such feedback. She said she will host a national webinar on the issue. Town Council is slated to hold a budget work session Tuesday."

Boulder Promotes Physical and Fiscal Fitness - Resource Allocation Clearly Promotes Community Value of a Healthy City

Boulder Promotes Physical and Fiscal Fitness
“People here take health and fitness very seriously,” says Steve Mertz. And so does City government. 

Another way in which Boulder encourages a healthy lifestyle is through its budgeting process, Priority Based Budgeting, explains Jennifer Bray.  One of the results against which all 500-plus programs in the City are measured is “A Healthy City and Community.” In other words, the City makes a specific effort to lend support to programs that promote health and fitness within the community.

Fiscal Distress: Tools to Diagnose the Cause and Apply the... | icma.org

Fiscal Distress: Tools to Diagnose the Cause and Apply the... icma.org
For those of you who are participating in the March 10th webconference, Getting Ready for the Budgeting Process: How to Use Priority-Based Budgeting, you will benefit from this topic in a different way. The March 10th event focuses on fiscal wellness (prioritization budgeting). This webconference focuses on fiscal health. Two sides of the same coin, each topic has its own unique tools and techniques.

Get real-life examples of how local governments are benefiting from using this diagnostic approach to fiscal health. Chris and Jon will demonstrate the “Fiscal Health Diagnostic Tool,” point by point.

GFOA Publishes White Paper on Priority Based Budgeting Methodologies

GFOA's White Paper, which Jon and I had the priviledge to co-author with Shayne Kavanagh, documenting some of the key ingredients of a Priority Based Budget initiative. While most governments today agree on the need to prioritize services and resource allocation, the key issue remains: how does an organization actually DO this? What is the process? This is a paper about our methodologies and process which are pioneering in the field of priority based budgeting, as well as some of our most successful stories from the work, namely: San Jose, Lakeland, Walnut Creek, Blue Ash, Grand Island, Chesapeake, Boulder and Fairfield.


To quote Chesapeake's City manager, William Harrell: "It sounds intuitive but what we found was there was no real methodology to connect all of the things that government does" to what policymakers want to see for their cities."- Virginia Pilot
http://www.gfoa.org/downloads/GFOA_AnatomyPriorityDrivenBudgetProcess.pdf

Christiansburg Gains Community Support for Priority Based Budgeting Approach

Christiansburg Tries New Approach on Town Budget


Christiansburg Tries New Approach on Town Budget
Posted: Mar 08, 2011 4:23 PM MST

Christiansburg, VA - As governments look for new and better ways to stretch your tax dollars, many municipalities around the country are turning to a relatively new approach. It's making your money go farther, while bringing residents into the decision-making process.

The town of Christiansburg is trying what's called Priority Based Budgeting. The idea is to establish priorities within town departments that will help the decision makers avoid often counterproductive across the board cuts.

Monterey Hosts Town Hall Meeting to Discuss Latest in Prioritization Initiative

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/City-of-Monterey-Events.html?soid=1102643129353&aid=EHX_5nLi8bc

The City of Monterey is changing the way its annual budget is developed, so programs are transparent and linked to results, and citizens help set priorities. The process is called Priority-based Budgeting and it recasts the budget into programs instead of line items. Citizens are asked to define broad goals, such as quality of life, and then prioritize how they want their tax dollars spent to achieve those goals.

Preliminary results will be presented to the City Council on March 1 in the Council Chamber. Interested citizens are encouraged to attend the meeting. The item is currently scheduled for the evening session of the Council meeting.

Upcoming ICMA Webinar: Getting Ready for the Budgeting Process: How to Use Priority-Based Budgeting

Getting Ready for the Budgeting Process: How to Use Priority-Based ...

We're pleased to be connecting with ICMA for this 1.5 hour webinar. What's different about this webinar from past versions is that:
a.) we'll be completely focusing in on Priority Based Budgeting (whereas another webinar we'll offer in April will be focused entirely on a "How To" for diagnosing Fiscal Health),
b.) we'll be emphasizing in much greater detail the Resource Allocation Model, which is the final tool organizations are using to base resource allocation decisions on the work they've completed in the prioritization process - discover a way to look at all the programs and services your organization offers through the “unique window” that this priority-based budgeting process has created and have better conversations than ever about mandates, fee structures, citizens’ reliance and community partnerships

Citizen Blogger Perspective: Christiansburg asks citizens for input on how tax money should be spent?

Christiansburg asks citizens for input on how tax money should be spent?Depot Dazed Depot Dazed

Christiansburg asks citizens for input on how tax money should be spent? Posted on February 15, 2011 by Carol Lindstrom

My first response to this? “What? Who? How?”. Then it went to “this is a joke, isn’t it?”, no government does that. They must mean it will be something that happens during the scheduled budget meetings that few citizens ever attend. That’s gotta be it. They couldn’t be asking citizens for information in an open format encouraging all citizens to participate.

NOPE WRONG! It is coming in your next water bill if you are a resident of Christiansburg. If you miss that it will be coming to the meetings of various civic groups like the Lions Club, the Kiwanis Club, the NAACP! Mayor Ballengee even offered to have PR Chief Becky Wilburn go to other meetings if those groups will but contact Town Hall and ask.

Town Councilmember Stipes Reflects on Priority Based Budgeting from an Elected Officials Perspective

- AdvanceChristiansburg - Fiscal Year 2011 -2012

"It's safe to say that we all realize that it's impossible for Town Government to be all things to all people, so by this exercise we're taking a step back from budgeting 'business as usual' to break down town operations as they are today and analyzing/prioritizing next year's budget (and future budgets) with the expectations of the community as a whole; a grass-roots approach to actually building a budget as opposed to just projecting the status quo into the next year."

Institute for Local Government Lauds Monterey's Priority Based Budgeting Efforts to Engage Residents in the Process

Monterey Residents Help City Set Budget Priorities Institute for Local Government

In 2010, the City of Monterey engaged staff and residents in a priority-based budgeting process to determine how to best address reduced revenues and a five million dollar budget gap. Rather than make across the board cuts, the city brought in The Center for Priority Based Budgeting to help them engage staff and residents in transparently crafting a budget linked to results and values most important to the community. The city hired consultants who have developed and refined a process for aligning city resources and services with community values that has also been adapted for use in Walnut Creek, Fairfield, and 14 other communities. Residents were asked to further define broad goals set by the City Council, and then to prioritize how they wanted their tax dollars spent to achieve those goals. After extensive public education and outreach, an internal staff dialog and four facilitated public meetings, the consultants will report what they have learned about the priorities of the more than 600 Monterey residents who engaged in the process to the City Council in February of 2011.