I’m not going to write any more posts on the City budget that say “budget season has started”.  Budget season now officially never ends – we had our first presentation from the staff last night about their analysis of the city’s fiscal position.

There wasn’t really anything earth-shattering in the analysis but the big difference between this year and previous years is that, for the first time ever, the finance committee is looking at projections and analysis that include spending forecasts.  This was done as a part of my motion to approve a grant that allowed us to hire some fire fighters.

I made this request as I was growing increasingly concerned about expenditures in out-years to which the Council has committed the City.  There is a big police grant that will be due in a couple of years and another large grant that allowed us to hire some fire fighters/medics that will come online in 3 years.  Both of these grants have the Feds pay for 3 years of salary and the City pay for the positions thereafter.  If you’re not looking at expense forcasts and doing your budgeting year by year (which is what we were doing), you run the risk of being forced into a corner because you haven’t been looking down the road.  In our case, we found that if keep driving the same road, we’ll have to raise taxes in a couple of years for these things.  Now that we know what that looks like we can plan and address that situation before it arrives.  In all things, time = options.  More time, more options.  Less time, fewer options.

Expense forecasts are not universally embraced by small-town leaders.  Many local politicians are afraid of them – although it’s just information.  I think that the reason for this is that many localities are run like very small business – almost on a cash accounting basis.  This might be fine when you’re getting started but as anyone knows who has run a business with more than one employee, you have to switch to accrual accounting sooner than later.  Management needs to understsand its liabilities.  You cannot stick your head in the sand and hope to prevail.  An informed leader is a more effective leader.  You’ll also need a business plan that extends for more than a single year.  The City is in the same situation (our business plan is actually about 7 years old) and we need to be looking down the road.

The other aspect of expense forecasting that makes local electeds nervous is that it “sets expectations”.  I agree that expense forcasting may create expectations but I do not find that sufficient reason to avoid it.  I believe that the expectation of our constituents is that the Council should plan for the future and to me that is more compelling.  If a particular analysis shows that giving raises every year causes a problem in 3 years then the Council needs to have the backbone to make a change.

I went to the City Council meeting tonight and, at my place, there was a letter.  In that letter Larry Hughes announced his retirement tonight.

Larry has been the City Manager for over 12 years and has seen the City through the great times of the early 2000’s where, led by a Council with a vision, the City powered forward and did some great things in our City.  Next came an enormous immigration event and then the “Great Recession”.  Larry managed through these wrenching changes with relative aplomb although the political pressures were fierce.  Indeed, I came on the scene during the great recession and, fortunately for the City, one of Larry’s strengths is budgeting and finance.  Came in extremely useful when we had to make some extremely difficult budget decisions..

I’ve worked with Larry for the last 5 years and have found him a capable manager.  There are a couple of things that I’ve always admired about Larry.  Chief among them were his creativity and flexibility.  He was central to some of the early pieces and parts of Manassas Next – he knows every part of the budget and the government and wasn’t afraid to help figure out how to make some of those things happen.  That flexibility also served him well when the Council changed almost all of its members in 4 years.  I’m always amazed that Larry and his staff can be so patient with the new elected folks.  It must be a huge pain in the neck but they never seem to let it get to them.

Larry believed that his job was to “work on the Council” and, while I rarely thought about his job in those terms, I think that he did just that.  That’s a rare person that has the determination and discipline to keep that focus.

I’ll be sorry to see Larry go and that’ll happen at the end of the year.