spring time it's budget season for the city commission i have with me finance director john like to tell us about the budget process what is the budget process and how does it start each year well as you know our fiscal year runs from october one through september thirtieth and the budget is adopted in september we start the budget process shortly after the previous year's budget is adopted we start getting the staff together and looking at the budget counter for the next year we have a lot of statutory dates that we have to basically meet but we actually have the budget counter sets the workshops and sets the department meetings with all the with the city manager and all the different departments we usually start that process we take that budget calendar to the city commission in the january february timeframe and that lays out the workshops for the entire fiscal year all the way up through the public hearings in september are there any new initiatives being incorporated into the two thousand and sixteen budget yes there is we have had the same budget system  in the city here for many many years is not a windows based system and so this year is the implementation of a new budget system we're upgrading our old budget system to a new windows based budget system in the past two years all the all the data and all the justification expenditures in the budget were in the in the old budget system so this is given us a unique opportunity this year to what i would call implementing what we call a zero based budget in prior years we basically went on an incremental tight budget where the departments and all the different funds looked at what they spent in the prior year kind of they did what they think the increase would be safer fewer something other than the expenditures and they would increase their budget with the implementation of the new budget system actually able to clean out all the old data in the old system and start fresh so i kind of equate it to the blank sheet of paper and we've requested the apartments come forward with a justification for every single expenditure looking at maintenance contracts and you know the price of fuel on the price of the till is and we're asking them to do that we think that will give us a really clean start with the budget for next year in other words each department looks at everything not from adding these this many expenditure was there if you spin something to do have went down even though the prices go up there are certain things that happened in one example was fuel you know over the last couple of years fuel has actually went down some so in two years ago we may be budgeting fuel at four dollars a gallon we're now we're looking at to fifty so in an incremental tight budget we would just add on a little bit more now we're asking them to go back and look at their fuel use and look at the cost of fuel and justify those schools well where does the money come from to pay forfeitures license and permits in a governmental revenue other taxes charges for service and miscellaneous what's interesting in fiscal year two thousand and fifteen budget which we anticipate very similar budget for two thousand and sixteen avalon taxes are about nineteen million makes up about thirty four percent of the revenue that funds the general the general fund budget other taxes are about twelve point six six percent and in license permits about nine point one seven percent in those of the expend the revenues that make up the general funds budget on the other side we have enterprise funds and those are business type funds and the business type funds are based on fees for example bobby jones in the band ways or are based on a fee charged those of the revenues for those enterprise from what is the process and how does it work you know you get a tax bill every year but most of us don't know where where it's from that's correct in the current year all the construction is completed by january one of two thousand and fifteen or elles before assessed for the property tax during the current year which will fund our fiscal year two thousand and fifteen two thousand and sixteen budget there really kind of three major categories for alarm taxes one of them is the homestead property one of them is not homestead property in the other one is not residential property and the it's about a one third distribution between those three different sources basically in there what happens is the property prices around june this june first is to give the city an estimate of what he believes the assessed value or taxable value of the city's property will be for next fiscal year on july first he's actually required to certify that to us and so we use that certification of what the assessed value is for both real and tangible personal property in terms of the numbers let me show you a chart as obviously we don't fiscal year two thousand and sixteen but the taxable value for the city in two thousand and fifteen which we're using in our current year budget is about seven point five million dollars that is down from ten point three million cities high in two thousand and eight in two thousand and eight after two thousand and eight as the great recession hit we had basically four years of decline in his values double digits for three of those years the city's assessed value has increased over the last three years into two thousand and thirteen two thousand and fourteen and two thousand and fifteen in the current year values were up about five point three five percent the state is projecting somewhere between a five and six percent increase next year right now in our political just means we're using a five percent increase that we expect for next year and what percentage of those had been lowered taxes come from business and what percentage from what are what are the basic numbers let me show you another chart the next chart shows you what the expenditure breakdown is between the different functions in the general fund the really six functions in the general fund general government  public safety culture and recreation physical environment transportation and the breakdown is the public safety consumes approximately fifty nine point six percent of our expenditures and the general fund public safety is the combination of the police department and the code enforcement the culture of recreation consumes about two point six three percent or one point five million the transportation is five point eight eight in physical environments about six point six six point zero six percent and that kind makes up the distribution of expenditures throughout the general so most of our property taxes and most of our taxes are so actually spent on police seen in public safety corrective if you recall what i mentioned earlier is about nineteen or twenty million when we as citizens are looking at the budget how can we participate in the budget process so there's very many ways the citizens which is faith through the neighborhood the neighborhood organizations obviously contacting you on a day to day basis we also have public come in every commission meeting that they can come forward my door is always open we're always interested in making sure that we're spending the money the way the citizens want the money spent so those are those that are different sources that they can come forward and why is it important for citizens to participate in this process that's coming up but sometimes even those departments are doing their due diligence and trying to provide a level of service that the citizens want you know they can't be everywhere every place a lot of times you know they may not know that that there might be something that they need to the city needs to pay attention to so we're always well things that are employed so we can evaluate the level of service that we're providing now there are several budget what we would call workshops or hearings coming up can you tell me what the schedule is citizens if they're interested i mean i'd be happy to the on monday actually april the thirteenth we're going to hold a financial update that's going to give the city commission understanding of how we ended the previous fiscal year how we anticipate in the current fiscal year and kind of a peek into the next fiscal year after that will start to bring back the for the workshop to different funds and on may twenty seventh will have a capital improvement program workshop along with our special revenue funds on june the third will have an update from the previous workshop will address our internal service funds and our debt service funds on june the tenth  will entertain our enterprise fund those business type funds we talked about on june the twenty ninth will have the general fund that's the city's operating fun on june the thirteenth watch you do a budget wrap up where we bring all those funds together and present that to the city commission milage rates but cannot raise it and then we're in the budget by adopting the millage rate and the final budget public hearings on september the eighth and september the twenty fourth now last year only one citizen attended those hearings do you think that we'll get more citizens  amazes me that the budget process is where most important policy decisions are made and citizens don't seem to be engaged and you know last year did a citizen sky to the budget are we going to do it that same citizens guide this year well what we did last year was a recap of the fiscal year we did as a budget wrap up it was based on looking at last year's budget and the final financial projections we do plan on doing that this year that is has hit the streets and that's on the city's website if you'd like to see that it's called the annual popular report and it provides a really easy to understand guide to the numbers of the financial information that we have to provide in a two to three hundred page document so there is a big fat book and then there's a smaller book that citizens can get started with it's a how to get started that's correct you know we're under many many regulations from the city charter to the general standards to statute to provide financial information in a manner that you can compare one municipality to another what we like to do in this city in this in your popular report is to take the information scale it down and used terms that are very very familiar to everyone you know we might understand assets and liabilities but in the similar terms it's what we have and what we owe those types of things and we'd like to scale that down so that someone who doesn't want to read that wants to understand the financial stability and financial sustainability of the city you don't have to sift through many long term different types of terminology now are there any anticipated budget challenges this year there's always challenges in the budget what we're trying to provide is make sure we provide the right level services and then you know we're in the stage right now we're seeing some increase in property values but still are what i would call economically sensitive revenues some of our sales tax in those types of revenues as we look into two thousand and sixteen and projecting those we just have to make sure that we use our revenues and smart since and that we're able to provide the right services for this is well thank you for coming in and telling us all about the budget i'd really appreciate all the detailed information that you've given us and i hope you citizens come forward and join us in participating in the budget process because most of the major decisions are made at the budget process and let me ask one last question and that is what happens when something comes up during the year when some comes up during the year we always have the opportunity to mend the budget once it's adopted in september we always bring that back to the city commission and they make the final determinations on whether that  s a budget increase and procreation of those funds will thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me and talk to the citizens about our budget process and join me next time on commercials corner