The Finance Committee met 12/11/2023. One of the items they took up was Resolution 14-R-23 which would move the deadline for the delivery of the executive budget to the Common Council up by a couple weeks from the first Wednesday in October to the third Wednesday in September.
Some of the members of the alderpersons were interested in receiving the budget earlier given that it is a very large document and they would appreciate having some additional time to digest it; however, after hearing from Finance Director Jeri Ohman about the budget creation process and how moving budget delivery up by a couple weeks would impact that process, they committee ended up voting 4-0 to recommend the resolution for denial.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) was the author of the resolution. He said that some communities delivered their budgets in mid-September and some that at least delivered their capital budget earlier than the general fund budget. Regarding the resolution he said, “What it really boils down to is: are we comfortable, I guess, where we’re at and the amount of time that we get to review, offer input and potential changes to the budget under the sort of timeline we have now?”
After having discussed the matter for an hour to an hour and a half with Director Ohman, his understanding was that moving up the timeline for budget delivery would result in some tradeoffs in certainty about some of the numbers in the budget. “. I think the way she said to me was the budget as is now when it comes to us is sort of the staff’s best guess as to what they’ve put together with all the information they have. Moving the timeline up two weeks, makes that maybe just a slight amount less certain. And if potential changes come up, for example, if more money is is—comes in from a fund that wasn’t expected, then it becomes the sort of Council’s decision as to how to allocate those funds, because the budget has already been delivered to us versus the staff making a change at the last minute before it gets delivered to Council at the first meeting in October.”
The committee asked Director Ohman about the budget process and she reviewed the process and timeline for budget preparation. I will not detail the entire process here, but as a very broad overview, the budget process begins in early April prior to the completion of the audit for the previous year but after the auditors are no longer onsite, and throughout the process staff is dependent on various financial information being released by the state. WRS rates, necessary to project payroll, are not typically released until the end of June. That information is needed for departments to finalize their budgets which are due back at Finance by July 10. Ever after receiving the departments’ budgets, the Finance Department still needs to put it all together and some of the information they need from the state in order to finalize things is not available until the middle of September.
The various departments were already tight meeting their deadlines and in order to deliver the budget earlier, the entire process would have to be shifted forward, which would decrease the accuracy of what was presented to the Common Council.
Although Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) was not present for the meeting, she had researched the statement made in the resolution that “The deadline for the delivery of the City of Appleton executive budget lags behind that of many other municipalities in the state by as much as three weeks”. She provided a spreadsheet of budget delivery dates in different municipalities to the committee. Unfortunately, that spreadsheet was not attached to the minutes of the meeting or to the agenda of the 12/20/2023 Common Council meeting. Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) said she filtered the spread sheet for municipalities of similar size to Appleton. As she gave an overview of those other cities, it seemed that the only three that received their budget markedly sooner than Appleton were New Berlin which received its budget on September 1, La Crosse which had its budget go to the Board of Estimates on September 7 and then the full Council on October 20, and Fond Du Lac which received its budget on September 20.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) appreciated the spirit of the resolution but thought “the view may not be worth the climb.” She did, however, wonder if it would be possible to keep the section of the resolution that stated “All city department heads will, as an informational item, present a preliminary budget overview to the assigned committee of jurisdiction each year at the 2nd committee meeting in the month of July.”
It was not clear to staff what exactly they would be reporting on since they would still be somewhat early in the budget process. Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 2) noted that annual reports from the previous year were generally given around that time and suggested that some of what was requested in the resolution could be rolled into that.
Additionally, Alderperson Firkus expressed a desire to maintain a separation of powers. “[T]he legislature does have its role, and the executive does have its role. And I think it could get very messy if you end up having, you know, 15 alders trying to act like mayors.”
The committee ended up voting 4-0 to recommend the resolution for denial.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1138498&GUID=595541F5-451D-4F5F-A49D-F39674F7C1D5
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