Ketchum City Administrator Gary Marks had a novel experience at a City Council meeting on Monday night after he gave an in-depth explanation of the city's preliminary budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year.
"I don't think I've ever received applause for a budget presentation before," Marks said in an interview. "It was kind of strange."
The accolades from both the council and members of the public were not in response to some miracle method for reversing the economic downturn, but rather for revamping the budget process to make it more efficient and transparent.
Perhaps the greatest change implemented by Marks is a reform of how the budget itself is created.
"The old method was to take spending proposals from all of the department heads, total them up, which was usually more than our revenue, and then struggle to cut these down," Marks said. "The better way is to understand the revenue situation and develop a target for each of the city departments and have the heads hit those targets."
That means that the council won't have to sift through "wish lists" from each department and look for ways to pare them down to make them balance with projected revenues.
Marks recommended that the city split the local-option tax and street funds away from the general fund to provide an even greater assurance that these revenues are being spent in accordance with state and city code.
Stressing that he was working with preliminary estimates that are highly subject to change as the budget process moves forward over the next two months, Marks said his forecasts so far are for a flat budget or a minor reduction in revenue compared with the current fiscal year.
Marks' current projection has general fund revenue at $5.97 million, similar to the current year after the LOT and street funds are added back. That is down about $1.5 million from the 2007-08 fiscal year. The decrease is largely a result of a slowdown in new developments as well as a 25 percent drop in LOT revenue.
"The importance of the new budget is that it will be more transparent, and that we have built a fund balance and are reducing expenses," Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall said in an interview.
The city will hold budget workshops over the next few months and has to finalize its budget by the end of August for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Jon Duval: jduval@mtexpress.com
