OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET PRIORITIZATION PROCESS

History: Budget Prioritization Process with community involvement that took place in 2009

During the retreat in January of 2009, City Council directed staff to implement the Budget Prioritization process recently completed by Jefferson County.

The process involves several steps that lead up to a prioritized list and quartile ranking of City services which will help guide staff and Council in the allocation of resources in the 2010 budget.

To read more about this process please download the 2010 Prioritization Process (pdf file, 4.2 mb)

fiscal fitness

The Steps that occurred are summarized below:

PROCESS TIMELINE

PROCESS STEPS

Step 1

Identify the Right Results

The purpose of this step is to determine City-wide results. During the budget process last year, the staff took the strategic directions that came out of the Focus on Longmont planning process to come up with the following five Results:

City-wide Results and Outcomes
Economic Health
Environmental Health
Neighborhood Quality
Community Safety
Cultural, Learning, Recreation and Human Service Opportunities

Step 2

Define the Results

The next step will be to define the outcomes for each Result and the underlying assumptions and factors that influence the outcomes. Accurate prioritization requires a clear definition of the result such that the cause and effect relationship can be identified and reflected in the scoring process. The definitions should be clear, comprehensive, logical and measurable and identify the influences and factors that are most critical to the achievement of the Result.

The definitions and assumptions are developed by a separate team for each Result. Each Results Team will create a strategy map that identifies the outcomes, influences and factors they believe are the most critical to the achievement of that Result. Attachment A is an example of a cause and effect map that was used by Jefferson County in their process. These outcomes will then be used in step 3 and 4. Staff is proposing that these teams be made up of city staff that is the closest to the Result and therefore, the most knowledgeable about the factors that influence the outcomes.

Step 3

Value the Results

The goal of this step is for the community to place a relative value on the Results. With the outcomes identified in step 2 as supporting information, the public will be asked to identify the value of each Result via a scoring method that requires they give relative weights based on the perceived importance of the Result to the community.

One way to participate is to complete the online Fiscal Fitness Survey (Survey closed Monday, June 1)

RESULTS MAPS

Step 4

Score City Programs

Once the programs are identified, departments will go through a process to score these programs based on how the program influences the outcomes of each Result that was identified in step 2. The relative value of the Results will be used to weight the scoring scale such that a program that meets the result with the greatest value has the potential to achieve the highest score. Programs that accomplish more than one result will also have the ability to obtain a higher score. Other basic program attributes such as legal mandates, capacity for revenue generation and demand for the service will also be evaluated during the scoring process. The process will also include a peer review.

Step 5

Staff will present the prioritized list of services to council in July for discussion and direction. The intent would be to get direction from Council regarding how they would like to use or incorporate this information into staff budget preparation. It is intended that this prioritization list and quartile ranking become the basis for how funding will get allocated in the General Fund for 2010.

Steps one through five (1 - 5) in the time line outlined above have produced the following prioritized lists of general fund services. One list is for direct City services and the other list is governance.

Direct City Services

We received 636 total responses to the fiscal fitness survey. The following responses were used to weight the scores of each direct service and thereby help determine the overall service score and the relative priority order of the services. These responses do not equate to the percentage allocation of General Fund dollars, but to the residents’ priority in funding these areas (and results maps):

23.0 Economic Health

16.4 Environmental Health

14.6 Neighborhood Quality

27.5 Community Safety

18.6 Cultural, Learning, Recreation & Human Service Opportunities

100.0 Total

Direct City Services Prioritization List

List of Direct Services by Quartiles

Governance

Efficient and Effective Governance (results map)

Internal City Services Prioritization List

List of Governance by Quartiles

Results from the 2008 Budget Forums

Information regarding Setting the Priorities of GovernmentCommunity Forums

City Council Communication: 2009 General Fund Budget Options

Attachment “A”: Results from question on General Fund priorities from the city web page.

Attachment “B”: Preliminary Content Analysis of Comments from Community Forums.

Attachment “C”: Comparison of Sales Tax Vendor Fees for Colorado home rule cities.

Attachment “D”: Proposed Union Reservoir Fee increases.

Attachment “E”: Comparison of minimum court fines for selected Colorado cities.

Attachment “F”: Notes recorded at the three Community Budget Forums.

Attachment “G”: Comments in response to budget questions from the city web page.

View 2009 Operating Budget and related documents