First, the Finance Department follows the City Charter Section 7.1, and seeks Budget Requests from each department. The City fiscal year ends June 30, so the fiscal year is referred to as 2011/2012, or 11/12. The Finance Department notice includes a printout for our current year budget with amount expended to date and balance remaining, for each line item under our responsibility.
Second, the Conservation Commission takes on the task of reviewing goals, mission, activities, expectations, projects, staffing, and budgeting line items with justifications that would seek to accomplish the collection. This was done at our WedJan5 meeting and the request voted in approval to be submitted.
Third, the Finance Director will assemble all requests for the Mayor, who will present the Mayor's Budget Proposal for FY 11/12 to the Board of Aldermen.
Fourth, the Board of Apportionment and Taxation will meet jointly with the Board of Aldermen in a series of budget workshop meetings, where various department heads are called in to answer any questions. After completion of the workshops, the BoA&T will submit it's budget recommendation to the BoA.
Fifth, the Board of Alderman as the final fiscal authority will approve the budget and set the mill rate (tax rate) for the coming year.
The Conservation Commission has just completed step #2. In full transparency, you can view the complete document regarding our budget request since the actual email that was sent to the Finance Director was also courtesy copied to our google groups service.
It is my personal hope that the City would make more use of electronic methods to accomplish it's tasks. We are the only Department that submits it's budget request electronically.
