All levels of government tax. All levels of government spend. It doesn’t matter if it’s federal, state or local government. It doesn’t matter if it’s a government controlled by Democrats or Republicans or Independents. Governments tax and spend. That’s what they do. The more important questions about government taxing and spending are: “What is government taxing?” and “What is government spending the tax money on?”.
There was an article in the Sunday Star-Tribune about the current status of the State’s budgeting process. The article identifies the difficulties of reaching agreement on a budget for state government functions in an atmosphere of politically divided government. It must be tough. First there’s the challenge that political partisanship brings to the process of discussion and debate. Then there’s the challenge of the needing the legislative branch and the executive branch to ultimately reach an agreement.
Budget making at the local level is challenging too, but the challenges are different. We have a new addition to our process this year of forming the City’s 2008-2009 budget. It’s called the Budget Advisory Commission (BAC). The BAC was appointed by the City Council earlier this spring. We have been meeting with them over the past two weeks for their orientation process. It’s been very interesting.
The BAC is going to review and comment on my proposed budget to the City Council. That budget is under development right now. Once it’s ready in draft form, City staff will present the draft budget to the BAC. We will share with the BAC the operational and fiscal assumptions that go into making a budget. They’ll ask us questions we may not have thought to ask ourselves. They’ll challenge (I hope) our assumptions and give us ideas and suggestions that will improve what we do and how we do it. Sometime in August, I’ll forward a budget proposal on to the City Council which has (I hope) an endorsement from the BAC. That’s my goal.
City staff are busy now working on their budget and work plans for the 2008-2009 biennial budget. Work papers are due to our Finance Office in early June. It’s going to be a busy process this year, but one that I think will bring added value to that way we do our work here. I’m looking forward to it.
