Oakland Tribune: Priority-based budgeting means asking residents what they want - Inside Bay Area

Barnidge: Priority-based budgeting means asking residents what they want - Inside Bay Area
NOT EVERY government officials conference is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Sometimes they put down their umbrella drinks long enough to address significant matters. So it was earlier this week in San Jose, where the International City/County Management Association held its 96th annual conference, with every eyeball in the crowd searching for ways to balance a shrinking budget.

The presentation focused on priority-based budgeting, which translates roughly to this: Which programs are most important to residents and which can be whacked? That may sound numbingly simple, but it represents a departure from traditional thinking. "Across-the-board budget cuts preserve mediocrity in all programs," said Jon Johnson, senior manager for the Center for Priority Based Budgeting. "We want to find the top programs, those that help us achieve the results we seek." He said San Jose once had nearly 600 city-funded programs, obviously not all of them essential. The challenge was identifying which were most valued. The solution -- imagine this! -- was to ask the people.

Said Johnson: "It's important to ask not whether police are more important than libraries but what programs are of the highest interest to citizens." (That police-library thing sounds vaguely familiar.)

Cities need to look within for help, too. Volunteers are an important resource. "Part of the new paradigm is not treating citizens as our customers but as our partners," said budgeting expert Chris Fabian

PBB Guides Funding Decisions as City of Boulder Recommends 2011 Budget

http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/files/City%20Council/Study%20Sessions/2010/Aug_24_2010_SS/2011_recommended_budget.pdf

From the City Manager's Letter: "PBB has introduced a mechanism to determine if city programs are accomplishing city goals, are appropriately provided by local government, and if programs could be more efficiently provided by developing new partnerships with community organizations."

From Budget Document: "In this first year of PBB, the process was used as a guide in making funding decisions in the City Manager's 2011 Recommended Budget. It is one of several tools that can inform staff and council in strategically targeting funding reallocations in a number of ways including:

• improved efficiencies in any of the four quartiles,
• reallocation of funding based on the changing needs of the community, and
• model program budget impacts based on city revenues.

PBB will continue to evolve each year, and it is anticipated that program inventories, results and definitions may be adjusted to ensure their alignment with community needs and values.

City of Monterey Hosts Priority-based Budget Public Meeting #1

From Chris Fabian: Many of you have asked about the Town Hall meetings where citizens are invited to define the community's results: "what does this look like in action?" Between these pictures, and the video we'll post in the next week or so, hopefully you'll get a good sense of the "Green Screen" exercise we keep referencing, and the collaboration between staff and citizens in the building of results. These pictures are from last night in Monterey which was just an incredibly productive night.

MONTEREY LAUNCHES PRIORITY-BASED BUDGETING
Public Input Sought
By Communications & Outreach Manager Anne McGrath
http://www.monterey.org/focus/
 
The City of Monterey is launching a public review of its budget priorities this fall and your participation is vital to the success of the Priority-based Budgeting project. In good times, the City allocated its resources to a wide range of programs and services. Now, the City needs to adjust to "the new normal" of reduced revenues. In Monterey, revenue from hotel, sales and property taxes have fallen to levels not seen in years. Significant recovery is unlikely for the next several years. So, the City needs to tighten its belt just like other municipalities, businesses and citizens have done.
Several public meetings will be held in October and November to gather public input on City priorities for the future with the assistance of two nationally known consultants who are working with 16 other cities. Monterey is in much better financial shape than many other municipalities, and taking these steps pro-actively is critical to continuing on a path of fiscal soundness.

Fairfield Citizen Engagement Process Reaches Over 1,300 Citizens by Taking Prioritization Directly to Community Meetings

http://www.fairfield.ca.gov/gov/depts/finance/budget_suggestion_box.asp

From Mid-August through September 22, 2010, the City embarked on a comprehensive public outreach process to solicit the community’s input as to how the City should allocate its resources across the City’s four results. 

The City received more than 1,300 responses that have all been collected and analyzed. 

Feedback was obtained by having staff attend and administer a survey at community, service club, business, and homeowner meetings, being available before all City Council and Commission meetings that occurred within the timeframe for this work, soliciting the input of City employees through electronic and paper surveys, and seeking the input of the community by having the survey available on the City’s website, City Hall at the Mall, and speaking to families that utilize the City’s preschool and afterschool programs. 

City of Monterey Launches Extensive Public Engagement Process to Continue their Work in Priority Based Budgeting

http://www.monterey.org/newsroom/2010/pbblaunch100908.pdf

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.

Public meetings will be held in October and November to gather citizen input. The first public meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 6 from 7:00 – 9:30 p.m. at the Monterey Conference Center. At that session, citizens will be briefed about the priority based budgeting process and will help refine the goals articulated by the City Council as a series of Value Drivers. A second round of public meetings will be held the week of November 8 – 12. At those sessions, citizens will be given an imaginary $500 to spend on the goals they believe are most important.

Boulder proposes flat budget for 2011, holds line on expenditures

City manager proposes flat budget for 2011, holds line on expenditures « C1N Boulder Blog

Concurrent with the BRC II analysis and implementing its recommendations, the city adopted a Priority-Based Budgeting (PBB) process to identify core city services and the community goals for its municipal government. PBB is an evolution of the Boulder Business Plan and continues the city’s focus on financial sustainability by addressing critical deficiencies and allocating funds to programs and services that achieve the greatest results.


“Although Boulder is in a better financial condition than many of its peer cities, the economic outlook continues to be uncertain,” said City Manager Jane Brautigam. “In response, we’re taking a prudent and strategic approach to the 2011 recommended budget by focusing on achieving greater efficiencies in how services are delivered to the Boulder community. In many cases we have been able to reallocate staff and funding to those areas most likely to achieve community goals, and are reducing duplication of services to hold the line on spending at 2010 levels.”

Fairfield Engages Community in Priority Based Budgeting

Fairfield seeks input on budget - The Reporter

With the economy still bleak and an $8.3 million deficit looming in its 2011-12 budget, the city of Fairfield is reaching out to the community to help bridge the financial divide.

"We've made it a priority because this will impact every person's life," said Dave White, assistant to the city manager. "We want to be as available as possible."

Officials hope a new techno community outreach campaign, by way of the Priority Based Budgeting process, will generate a wealth of ideas that will ultimately shape and craft the city's budget. The PBB apparently will help the city set its financial priorities and prioritize services according to their contribution to meeting city goals.

Grand Island Budget Passes - "Council members know more about this city than ever before"

Grand Island Budget Passes - KHGI-TV/KWNB-TV/KHGI-CA-Grand Island, Kearney, Hastings, Lincoln

Grand Island City Council passed the proposed budget with amendments, with just three weeks to spare on Tuesday night.


The two police jobs, which were up in the air, are safe and with no tax increase this year. Congratulations and thanks were passed by almost every council member to city staff for figuring out a way to bring back two police jobs to the department and without cost to citizens.

City of Boulder Engages in a New Conversation About the Relevance of Programs to the Results of the Community

By Heath Urie Camera Staff Writer

Posted: 07/26/2010 09:45:34 PM MDT

The city of Boulder is looking to change the way it manages its annual budget. Under the new model, the programs that best help the city achieve the community's goals of having a safe, economically sustainable and socially vibrant place to live will receive top priority for funding. Those programs that are duplicated, waste money or don't meet the community's goals could be cut.
 
City Manager Jane Brautigam has been working this year to move to a "priority-based" budget, in which the things most important to the community are first in line for funding. Following a series of public meetings and working with a pair of outside consultants, the city compiled a list of every public service it provides.
The new list divides the city's 443 programs into four categories, ranking them from highest to lowest priority, based on whether they help meet the community's general goals of cultivating a safe, economically sustainable and socially thriving community.

Grand Island City Administrator Holds Press Conference Announcing Balanced Budget on the Principles of Fiscal Health and Wellness (Prioritization)

Chesapeake, Virginia Begins Prioritization - "This is a More Disciplined and Analytical Approach"

Chesapeake, Virginia Begins Prioritization - "This is a More Disciplined and Analytical Approach"

With budgets getting tighter across the country, more cities are turning to Prioritzation.


"I just feel like we need to begin to put proactive steps in place so we can prepare the organization for what is ahead," said William Harrell, City Manager. "Sure, we can just start eliminating things. But then is that what the citizens are saying? Is that what council is saying to us? This is a more disciplined and analytical approach."

"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.

Lakeland, Florida Reaches "New Heights" in Aligning Resources with Priorities

Budget Message - Prioritization

Alignment has been taken to new heights in FY 2010 as the City developed its new “Budget by Priorities” process to better define the varied and numerous Municipal Core Services (along with their respective costs and revenues) provided to our constituents and comparatively evaluate their respective influence on achieving Goals and Outcomes. This process is specifically designed to provide a higher degree of understanding among decision makers regarding the scope, costs and impact of the various Core Services and better articulate how we value our services, invest in our priorities and ultimately divest ourselves of lower priority services.

Blue Ash Leverages Citizen Survey and Public Engagement in Prioritization as City Prepares for Long-term

Update on Blue Ash's budget prioritization process cincinnati.com CommunityPress.com

Recent information from Moody's (the nation's largest bond rating agency) confirms that prioritization processes such as what Blue Ash is going through demonstrate a strategic approach to managing the current fiscal environment.

So where do we go from here? The local government advisors developed a unique tool that Blue Ash can utilize for years to come as a part of the city's annual budgetary planning process. This tool will be valuable in assisting the council and administration in determining what services and programs contribute directly to the city's overall objectives, including the evaluation of any future new programs or services being considered.

Walnut Creek Recognized for Authentic Citizen Engagement in Prioritization Process by the Institute for Local Government

http://www.ca-ilg.org/node/2601

Walnut Creek uses Community Dialogues to Inform Difficult Budget Decisions

Even cities with a relatively well-off population are facing difficult choices due to falling revenues. In the eastern San Francisco bay area city of Walnut Creek, as in many other cities around the state, local officials faced the unpleasant task of cutting programs in 2009 due to budget shortfalls, and the more unpleasant task of explaining this to the public. Building on an ongoing tradition of collaboration with residents and community building programs, city staff and officials worked with consultants and adopted a multi-stage public engagement Fiscal Health and Wellness prioritization process to educate and gather informed input from hundreds of residents.

City of Fairfield Launches Website Inviting Community to Follow Progress in Priority Based Budget Initiative

http://www.ci.fairfield.ca.us/gov/depts/finance/priority_based_budgeting.asp

PBB is attractive to the City because it relies on community input and the work of employees to be successful.

In contrast to past years, decisions on potential funding reductions are expected to occur at the program level rather than at the level of individual budget line items that run across multiple programs. The results of this process are anticipated to enable decision makers to reallocate funding between programs based upon changing needs and priorities.