City Council Minutes 2018 01 23 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes January 23, 2018 Page 2 of 4 Councilmember Leh stated for most people the process seems opaque. People don't get involved because they are satisfied or don't have the time. He stated it would be nice to have some kind of one-on-one for people to understand the budget process; a way to help people understand the budget calendar. Councilmember Loo noted Erie has a colorful Budget 101 presentation on their web site Watson stated when the Tyler enterprise system is in place we will be able to lay that over the web site to allow people access to the details in the budget similar to Erie's Mayor Muckle stated the biennial process worked well last time and it did save Council and staff time in the second year. He asked if the schedule could be put on the web site along with some kind of summary to help people understand the program areas and how much we are spending in each area and sub program. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated he has not gotten complaints from people looking for more information about the budget. He would hate to spend a lot of staff time on this if people don't contact us looking for more information or come to a meeting now and then. He stated if people are interested in the budget we can reach out to them, but this may not be an issue to which we need to dedicate a lot of staff resources. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated the work of the Finance Committee and the program budgeting does have a lot of benefits but we need to continuously improve on the foundation we have already built. We need to present the Key Indicators with many years of data to see how we are progressing. We can continue to improve the Key Indicators. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated certain boards and commissions would like more ability to get their opinions into the budget process. We need a larger window to get their input. He noted the boards sincerely want to have input and they can feel marginalized when their items may be removed by staff. He would like Council to be able to see their input before it is filtered by staff and the City Manager's Office. Councilmember Loo stated she does get questions about items related to the budget She stated maybe we need an FAQ on "here is what we are spending money on." She noted people don't realize how much we spend on projects and how it relates to other projects and the total budget If we give people some perspective on how we spend our money that would help Councilmember Maloney stated we need to be clear what Council's expectations are for the budget. We have a good groundwork for the program budget; now is the time for maturation. We need to look where we are not meeting expectations and decide if we need more funding in those areas.