Thursday, May 28, 2015

CBAC Recommends A Better Process

The Citizens' Budget Advisory Committee report had more information than I could fit in one post and I had intended to file it later, but CBAC Chairman Tom Kaercher has saved me the trouble by sending along the information in a comment. In case readers don't go back and check for all the comments, I am posting it here because these are very important points.

From Tom Kaercher, 2015 CBAC Chairman

Thank you for covering Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC)’s Report to Council. There are a few other key points from the CBAC Report that people need to know. 

First, the Council gave the CBAC five specific goals:
1. Compare Plainfield’s budget expenses, revenues, and service to municipalities of similar size and demographics.
2. Identify possibilities for shared service agreements similar communities have agreed to.
3. Identify core services, as defined by residents, and rank in their priority order
4. Identify structural budget imbalances caused by one time measures and recommend strategies to eliminate them
5. Make a set of budget recommendations for the 2015 Calendar Year Budget.

Next, for 2015, the budget review period was only two weeks long and covered only 11 of the 36 department or expense categories in the city budget and did not review any of the Revenue side of the budget or the City’s Debt Finance Plans. 

Since the CBAC had only a partial view of City Budget and only a few weeks to work, the CBAC was not able to work on Goals 1, 2, 3 and 4 and was not able to do a comprehensive job on Goal 5. 

As a result, the CBAC made four Budget Process Improvement Recommendations to the Council.

1. The CBAC should be formed in January and begin meeting as soon as the prior year’s books are closed and actual data is available. This would give the CBAC time to work on Goals 1 to 4.
2. A schedule of Budget Review Meetings should be set early in the year, even before the budget is available, to maximize the attendance from all stakeholders (Council Members, Departments heads, and CBAC Members) at all meetings.
3. There should be a much longer budget review period so all departments can be reviewed in detail, the Revenue side of the budget can be reviewed, and the City Debt Finance Plans can be reviewed
4. All Departments’ prior year Goals & Accomplishments and current year goals, should include the actual impacts (Cost savings, Efficiencies, and increased people served) that have been achieved by the things they have done.

Some of these items are carry-over recommendations City Council from prior CBAC committees. The 2015 CBAC hopes the Council and Administration will work together to implement these recommendations to ensure more comprehensive and thorough budget reviews and improved cost savings and efficiencies throughout Plainfield city government in the years to come.

4 comments:

  1. From that which I have read, the brief format of this years Budget review was not organized in "good faith" but intended to be a vehicle to blast the administration. Tom's memo to you confirms that impression. I expect to expound on this in my blog after the election because serious fault can be found with both factions although much more with one than the other. The Wednesday 10 Budget meeting should be an eye opener, depending on election results.

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    1. EVERY year's CBAC is intended to blast the administration. That's why it was formed in the first place. Mapp encouraged (if not engineered) it's formation as a counter to SRB's lack of transparency and lousy planning. At first there may have been a pipe dream of actually gaining control of the budgetary process but that was quashed almost immediately. What administration would cede it's power to determine budget priorities (aka dispensing patronage) to a bunch of political appointees with no formal educational or experiential requirements, especially when the committee is controlled by the opposition?

      I'll consider taking the CBAC seriously when they recommend a significant reduction in municipal employees, including public safety and DPW, to initiate meaningful, long term cost savings to the city's taxpayers. Until then the CBAC is just another vehicle for our endless small town show trials. Wish it were different, but it's not.

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  2. Tom did a great job. Doc this is not about the council Mr. Kaercher blast the administration

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  3. Once again we have, Rivers, a fiscal moron and others who used this process to hurt the administration instead of helping the people of Plainfield. If people don't vote out the trash on the City Council and their puppet masters, they get what they deserve. Rude, uninformed, easily bought, corrupt elected officials. Are we really in the 21st century?

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