There’s been some mention on here (I’m not picking on you Cindy!) and even out in the real world about this or that budget line item. Some of this is driven by what’s in the paper (there was an actual article about a council meeting!) and some is driven by other avenues of communication.
Let me explain a little: just because you hear about a particular item being discussed during budget time doesn’t mean that it is in the budget. By and large, the stuff you hear or read about isn’t in the budget the City Manager proposes. In fact, the vast majority of these items (especially the new ones) end up on the “open items list”. If the newspaper were to publish the entire open items list, there would certainly be an uproar: the staff will bring many things forward at budget time to see what the Council thinks of them. If things are presented, they normally go on the list even if they stand little chance of success. This may seem a bit strange but budget time is, after all, the appropriate time for these discussions.
So, to recap: the “Open Items List” (OIL from here on out) is a list of things that staff or Council want to either include or remove from the budget. The OIL accumulates items throughout the entire budget process. Even if all the Council members were to agree in advance that something is a non-starter, it still goes on the OIL. You never know what will happen. Any Council member can put anything on the OIL. If, during a staff presentation, a member of Council thinks that something is worth a second look, all he or she has to do is indicate to the finance staff that they would like that item on the OIL. It’s not a huge deal but it can be an ominous sign…:)
The OIL is taken up during a meeting right at the end of the budget process called “Markup”. Markup is the budget’s D-Day. This is the meeting where all of the items on the OIL and the rest of the budget are processed in order to come up with a final budget number. During Markup, some items fall off the OIL almost immediately. Some stick around longer and eventually make it into the budget. Some things that were presumed to be in the budget come out.
As you might expect, the markup meeting is one part Turkish street bazaar (complete with haggling) and one part public meeting. The “public” normally consists of staff members who want to know what is going to happen. I can only recall about 4-5 citizens that have ever been at that meeting. In years past markup was considered, by Manassas standards, to be somewhat contentious. A contentious Manassas meeting is where people disagree about something and then very politely bargain to some conclusion. It is not an all-out confrontation. All-out confrontations might seem satisfying and necessary to make hard decisions but they are not. Neither are they productive (Frankly, people that believe that sort of thing is required to confront difficult decisions have rarely had to make them.). However, as the budget has been reduced the decisions regarding discretionary items have become simpler: they aren’t happening.
For the 4 years that I’ve been on the Council, the markup meeting has produced good results. Those results are not always predictable! I’ve been surprised by some of the cuts we have made. However, when you view the OIL in light of the larger budget, the actions of the Council make pretty good sense.
If you are considering going to a budget meeting to see how the sausage is made, markup is it. You’ll have an easier time understanding what’s going on if you at least read the City Manager’s budget presentation in advance.