City Discusses a Budget Document that's Lighter on the Numbers

The College Park City Council will explore ideas to make the budget document – a 400-some-page text- and numbers-heavy book – a bit less daunting for residents to read.

But the city's finance director warned at Tuesday's mayor and council worksession that only minor tweaking was realistic for the fiscal year 2013 document.

"As far as I an see, that’s all we can do right now," Finance Director Stephen Groh said.

Throughout the discussion, council members said the document is especially numbers heavy. Some suggested looking at the document belonging to Ocean City as a model. There were also suggestions for short narratives comparing budget changes from one year to the next for each department, and some suggested more graphs.

Groh recognized the shortfalls of the budget format, but he said there have been strides forward over the last several years. Limited human power also limits further improvement, he said.

"There is no staff. There’s Leo and me, doing this amidst everything else," he said, referring to Deputy Director of Finance Leo Thomas.

Councilwoman Christine Nagle (Dist. 1) made the proposal Tuesday after proclaiming herself a non-numbers person.

"It would be very helpful for me and I think for the other residents to see a synopsis … of the positive things that are being done … so they can see how their tax dollars are being spent," Nagle said.

But Councilman Robert Catlin (Dist. 2) said he doesn't think many residents have questions about the budget. If they do, he said it is his job to communicate the budget to his constituents.

"I don’t think it’s all that complicated for people to understand if they put a little bit of time into it and maybe talk to their council person," he said.

The 449-page fiscal year 2011 operating budget document includes a letter from the city manager explaining the budget process, operative budget revenue and expenditures, budgetary trends, property taxes, a table of short- and long-term goals, legal debt margin, performance measurement and program budgets.

Following the letter, the document is broken down into other categories. Some of them include:

• Comparison of operating budget revenue and expenditure between fiscal year 2010 adjusted budget and fiscal year 2011 adopted budget;
• Pie graphs breaking down general fund revenue and expenditure sources for 2011;
• Bar graph comparing 2010 and 2011 general fund revenue sources;
• Line graph comparing general fund undesignated fund balance over the years to 25 percent of the next fiscal year's expenditure budget;
• Written overview of the city and its departments and organizational chart;
• Written ordinance appropriating specific sums for the fiscal year's operating and capital budget;
• Written financial and budget policy and procedure descriptions;
• Text and tables outlining the pay plan for city employees.

The rest of the 400 pages of the 2011 budget document largely consists of tables and text.

Take a gander and leave a comment below. Have you ever read the city's budget? Do you understand it? Could it be made more user-friendly, and how?