Life on the Board I - The Budget

First of all, thanks for running. Public service is difficult and largely thankless, but it is what America runs on. You continue an unbroken legacy that goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers, and before. Win or lose, you're willing to make a substantial contribution to your community – so thanks.

It's a good idea to start with the budget because this is the beginning of budget season. I wouldn't say that budget development consumes us, but it's never far from any conversation we have from now through December.

The first Budget Committee meeting was Monday morning, and we talked just in general terms about this challenges. The Budget Committee is the Administration Committee plus Andrew Marietta, but it's a public meeting and other Reps, and sometimes even candidates, attend pretty regularly. It's a really good place to get a long-term overview of County functioning. The next Budget Committee meeting is on Thursday, August 29 at 10:00 in the second floor committee room of the County Office Building.

The first thing that happens in the budget process is that the Treasurer “opens the budget tool.” The budget tool is software accessible by Department Heads, and is essentially the budget structure without any numbers in it. This has already happened; the budget tool is now “open,” and has been for a few weeks.

Ideally, Department Heads spend July filling in the budget tool. At the same time, they are presenting their budget for the next year to their parent committees. The Treasurer usually attends these Committee meetings to act as a resource. After whatever negotiation is necessary, the Department's final (up til that point) budget is entered into the budget tool.

Around the end of August, the budget tool is “closed,”, meaning that Department Heads cannot make any more changes. From then on, the Budget Committee meets pretty regularly and makes the changes necessary until, hopefully, around the middle of November, we have a balanced budget.

By the way - in many/most Counties, the Treasurer and the Budget Officer are two different people.  In Otsego County, the Treasurer is both.  If/when our County Manager comes on board, (s)he will almost certainly take on the role of Budget Officer. 

When the budget tool is closed, the Treasurer figures out the “gap” - the difference between revenue and expenses, given the budget lines as they stand at that time. The rest of the autumn is spent reducing that gap to zero. The Budget Committee can do it any way they want to, and often we call in Department Heads to talk about their requests, etc. The Treasurer is always there as a resource.

The budget gap is usually huge and scary – it has been as much as nine or ten million dollars – but there are always things to do – some hard, others easier – to bring it down to zero. By the way, our recent budgets have been around $110 million.

By state law, the Budget must be done by November 15. We usually have a public budget hearing at the Courthouse on the first Monday night of December, and no one ever comes. We can amend the budget by resolution until the budget is approved by the Board. We usually have a second full Board meeting in December, and that's when we approve the budget.

That's a quick overview of the way it works on paper. Watching the sausage being made in Budget Committee should add some important dimensions.

I'll be sending more summaries and overview of structure and function (and some opinions!) on an irregular basis.  Please let me know if there's anything you particularly want to know more about, and if/when you would like to meet to talk in more depth, etc.

(That last goes for you too, my hypothetical reader!)