City staff and City Council continued our discussions yesterday about the shape of our 2008-2009 City budget. Laurie Blake wrote a short piece about the meeting in this morning’s Star Tribune: “Eden Prairie Weighs Budget“.
We held our discussion yesterday in an extended Council workshop format. We typically start our pre-Council meeting workshops at 5:30pm, run them to around 6:30 pm, then move into our Council Chambers for Open Podium from 6:30-7:00pm. Our Council meetings start at 7:00pm sharp. We started yesterday’s Council workshop at 4:00pm in order to provide more time for presentation, discussion and some Q&A.
I gave the Council a short Power Point presentation that should the numbers that make up the four basic budget scenarios, which we are calling Version 1.0, Version 2.0, version 3.0 and Version 4.0. We also have variations on those four basic budgets: Version 3.1, 3.2, 4.1 and 1.5. That’s a lot of numbers to keep straight. Not only that, it’s a lot of operational scenarios to keep straight as well. Each budget version has tax and service implications for our residents. It’s important for our Council Members to have a good understanding of each budget version and its respective operational impacts so that they will be able to make the best decision when they approve the budget sometime during the next 7-8 weeks. So even though it seems like we may be spending more time talking about the budget this year than in previous years, that’s not a bad thing. Council Members take their budget responsbilities very seriously. Talking is good. Not talking about the budget would be a real problem.
Next up for the Council on this matter: A special Council workshop scheduled for Tuesday, October 30 at 6:00 pm in the City Council Chambers. This will be an entire evening dedicated to budget discussion because there is not a Council meeting that night. The Council had a robust discussion last night about the budget. I’m looking forward to helping them move that discussion through a process of culling some of the budget options on the table right now and getting down to a more specific plan. October 30 will be a good opportunity to accomplish that goal.
