How do you present your budget to Council each year? Do staff participate or make presentation? Do Directors?
Budget Presentation to Council
Experienced a variety of approaches over the years. In larger municipalities, it has been department heads with their program managers who present the budget to their operationally aligned committee or council. In smaller municipalities, it has been the Director of Finance who presents the budget with department heads available to answer questions.
Staff below program managers have not normally been involved unless they brought very specialized knowledge to the budget deliberations.
Recently, I happen to be looking at budget information from another jurisdiction where the minutes of their budget meeting indicated the Mayor presented the budget to Council which I have never seen before.
We operate with a Senior Management Team system (no CAO). With support from all Directors, the Treasurer presents the annual budget to Council via Powerpoint.
Each of our elected officials works with the staff accountant to create a tentative budget. Workshops are held where the proposed budgets are considered. The tentative version is posted for 30 days prior to passage. The final version passed is not necessarily the same as the tentative version. Sometimes funds are changed but most generally the bottom line stays the same. The Clerk posts the tentative and publishes the availability to review. The Clerk also arranges for a public hearing prior to passage.
Hi Karen,
In our city, the budget preparation season is kicked off by an annual training for staff. Each department has a budget analyst assigned by the Finance Department. The budget analysts send the templates to the departments and we complete our proposed budgets for review by the council. Before the budget is presented to the council, department staff meets with the budget analyst, the city manager and finance director to go over the proposed departmental budget. Finance develops the final city-wide presentation that is presented at city council by the city manager and finance director; department staff are present to answer questions, if needed. The entire process takes three months (March through June).
Thanks.