Item B: Budget Service Realignment

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ECC UGENE ITY OUNCIL AIS GENDA TEM UMMARY Work Session: FY09 Service and Budget Alignment Process Meeting Date: October 31, 2007 Agenda Item Number: B Department: Central Services Staff Contact: Kitty Murdoch www.eugene-or.gov Contact Telephone Number: 682-5860 ISSUE STATEMENT Shall the existing vision statements of the Eugene City Council be the basis for aligning city services in the FY09 Proposed Budget? BACKGROUND Last spring, the Budget Committee and the City Council approved an allocation of $100,000 in the FY09 budget to undertake an internal review of General Fund services in order to build a sustainable General Fund budget by FY11. Over the summer, staff initiated a Request for Qualifications and selected a consultant, Public Strategies Group, to advise City of Eugene staff in new and effective approaches for allocating resources so the City delivers the services citizens most want and are willing to support. In brief, the process involves cross-departmental staff teams developing cause and effect maps around each vision statement that describe the factors that most influence each vision statement. Departments will be asked to develop service strategies and outcome measures that address the factors identified on the maps. For the most part, the roles of the City Council, Budget Committee, and other interested groups remain the same during this process. Key changes occur in the procedures used by staff to build the budget. The Budget Committee and City Council are being asked to provide the public voice in the initial phase of the project and will have an opportunity to provide input into the maps. As in the past, public comment will be included in the spring review of the proposed budget. An evaluation of the process, including the City Council, Budget Committee, staff and other stakeholders will be conducted at the end of the process to determine whether the new approach should be expanded in FY10 to include additional public input into the vision/goal descriptions and service mapping. Staff seeks the council’s guidance early in the budget process to ensure that the council’s vision statements will not change markedly during the current year, so that the budget will align services appropriately. Staff also is alerting the council to the new process and the potential changes in the format of the service budget section of the budget document. The discussion of the FY09 budget process was originally brought before the City Council on October 17, 2007. Several councilors expressed concerns about the consultant and the process to be employed and tabled the discussion until after key stakeholders could be consulted and more information about the process could be obtained. On Monday, October 22, 2007, the City Manager pro tem Angel Jones and Budget Manager Kitty Murdoch met with representatives from employee labor organizations to discuss the project with them F:\CMO\2007 Council Agendas\M071031\S071031B.doc