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On May 11th, Richmond adopted its FY2021 budget. As you all know—since I never stop talking about it—the City’s budget process is one of my most favorite things, and I look forward to it all year long. This year’s process was, of course, different and unsatisfying. Gone were hourslong meetings, fights over process, jabs at the Mayor’s administration, and—most disappointing to me—gone were the departmental presentations. I love, love, love hearing each department head get up and defend their slice of the budget pie while pitching City Council on why their department rocks. But with The ‘Rona rewriting every portion of public and private life, budget season this year consisted of just a few video meetings, an anemic public hearing or two, and an agreement between both the Mayor’s administration and City Council to have regularly scheduled check-ins and propose budget amendments as necessary. This process sounds fascinating (to...me?), and, if I’m being optimistic, looks kiiiiiind of like the City is gifting us with an entire year of budget season!
That process is outlined in RES. 2020-R035, which sets up a two-stage budget review process the City will use moving forward into the next fiscal year. City Council will take up the resolution at their May 26th, 2020 meeting and hope to kick things off almost immediately.
But, like, do we really need this? Are things that uncertain?...is a hilariously rhetorical question I ask. At the moment, without a ton of data, the Mayor projects a $38.5 million general fund revenue decrease. That’s about a 5% cut from the $782 million budget he proposed back in March, and, if I’m being honest, some of the assumptions made to get to that number feel pretty rosy—a 5% decrease in sales tax, a 10% decrease in the meals tax, a 10% decrease in the admissions tax. I mean, when even is the next time folks will be able to host an event in Richmond that charges admission? Also, keep in mind these projections were set, like, in the unknowably distant past of March—without even a full month of lockdown under our collective belts. I don’t think anyone, anywhere in the country, is looking around expecting revenues to rocket right back to pre-coronavirus levels whenever we all emerge from our quarantines, but who knows!
And that uncertainty and lack of good, current data is exactly why the Mayor and City Council have decided to put together this regularly occurring budget check-in process.
RES. 2020-R035 creates a two-stage process to get updated financial information (expenditures, revenues, overall financial trends, that sort of stuff) into the hands of decision-makers so that they can, if necessary, propose and adopt budget amendments.
Stage One: the technical review! Assuming the resolution passes as currently written, this team will start meeting monthly in June and is tasked with reviewing data, creating monthly reports, and proposing budget amendments based on “priorities identified by the Mayor and the Council.” This team is comprised of the Director of Budget and Strategic Planning, one of their employees, the Deputy Council Chief of Staff, one of their employees, and other folks like the Director of Finance or the City Assessor as needed. One interesting note that reveals a bit about the relationship between Council and the Mayor’s administration: “Consensus between the administrative staff and the Council staff on each report will be sought, and any disagreements between administrative staff and the Council staff will be identified in the report.” Scandalous.
Stage Two: the policy review! These folks will meet quarterly starting in September. They’ll accept or trash any budget amendments that come out of the technical review group, and, if they can get consensus between Team Council and Team Mayor, they’ll recommend those amendments for adoption. The Mayor would then submit the amendments, and Council would then vote on them. This group is compromised of the Mayor’s Chief of Staff or the CAO, the Director of Budget and Strategic Planning, the Council Chief of Staff, the Deputy Council Chief of Staff, and other folks like the Director of Finance or the City Assessor as needed. So more bigwigs, but still lots of overlap with the technical review team.
A note about amending the budget: The City Charter has some things to say on how to go about doing that, and the process differs for amending up vs. amending down