What Happened?
Christiansburg, Virginia, has implemented a different budget process that evaluates and prioritizes programs and services delivered to residents. The strategy is designed to have a long-term impact on economic stability and sustainability of services.
Goal
In the wake of the economic downturn, Christiansburg had to deal with a budget deficit by altering its budgeting tactics. While some municipalities in similar situations opted to implement drastic cuts to spending, push off scheduled maintenance or cut staff numbers, Christiansburg decided to go another route.
Working with the Center for Priority-Based Budgeting in Denver, Colorado, Christiansburg:
- Created an inventory of the current programs and services provided by the town
- Evaluated their efficacy and importance
- Prioritized the list based on the results
By ranking town services and programs, Christiansburg determined what costs were most important in the long-term to both local government and residents. When prioritizing the town’s services, officials looked at:
- What was provided to the community
- The true cost
- The best way to allocate funds while maintaining a strict budget
Priority budgeting is designed to be a transparent decision-making process that preserves higher value programs regardless of the economic conditions. Identifying future goals helped the town develop a plan to sustain the level and types of services residents want while making cuts to less important programs to make up for the deficit.
Walnut Creek Story
Walnut Creek, California, was facing a number of fiscal challenges in 2012 standing in the way of funding:
- Public libraries
- Technology upgrades
- Employee health and retirement costs
- Federal and state unfunded mandates
- Capital needs for roads, parks, facilities, etc.
After reviewing its current revenue sources, the city found there were insufficient funds to continue existing services beyond 2014.
The city launched a priority budgeting strategy to achieve the city’s seven goals while maintaining a conservative budget. The goals included:
- High performing government
- Safe community
- Culture, recreation and learning opportunities
- Stewardship of the natural and built environment
- Economic vitality
- Effective transportation and mobility options
- Strong neighborhood and sense of community
Similar to Christiansburg, Walnut Creek first made an inventory of all programs and services provided by the government and ranked them in their ability to meet a city goal. The programs that scored in the top and bottom rankings were put through a second review by staff from the organization before the final rankings were approved by city leadership.
The programs are then sorted into quartiles based on the final rankings, and 76 percent of budget resources are allocated toward those in the top two quartiles. By providing enough funding for the most important programs and services, the city will be able to sustain them in the long-term and maintain economic stability. Large, across-the-board cuts, on the other hand, can offer drastic savings in the short-term with devastating setbacks in the long-term as underfunded necessities build up over time.
Analysis of Spending
Gov1 has reported on a variety of strategies municipalities use to improve fiscal planning and measure the performance of city programs and services.