Analyzing a municipal budget

Too many budget stories are written after the fact:

"Town Council last night adopted a budget of $11 million, an increase of $600,000 over last year's budget."

What does that mean to the residents, in human terms? To answer that question requires a reporter to dig into the budget process months in advance, to see what is in store for the reader, in taxes and services, in the coming year. Reporting what’s in the works helps readers form ideas about how to approach the issues, and when they should attend the public hearings on the budget to make their wishes known. And it piles up background for the final budget story.

A municipal budget, first and foremost, is a policy and planning document that tells you the staff's priorities and where the municipality is heading. The object of politicians and administrators in shaping the budget is to control the money, directing it at projects that will help the shapers. In the process, the public interest might be served, but often that’s not the first priority. As in most reporting, you don't go wrong by asking, "What's in it for them?"

Here are suggestions for finding what's behind the budget numbers:

1. Find the documents on which the budget process is based: the department's mission statement, its policy and operating procedures. Review documents department administrators use to prepare the budget.
   
2. Interview department heads concerning their goals for the coming year. But more important, talk to the people in the lower ranks of the department, who are often the ones who develop the department's wish lists. What are their hidden agendas? For example--funding the trip they've just got to take to attend a conference in Hawaii.
   
3. Find out which pressure groups are trying to influence budget expenditures: businesses, civic associations, religious groups, unions, etc. Assess their chances of getting an administrator to include their pet projects in the budget.
   
4. Compare increases in this year's expected budget requests with last year's, to see which programs are being emphasized, which cut back. Look into the ongoing activity on which the increase is based: Is it cost-effective, does it help the community, should it be phased out? Compare this budget with the budget of a town of similar size and situation. For instance: Is your town getting as good refuse collection as this other town for the same cost?
   
5. Assess the upcoming budget's affect on the community: More taxes, more services, fewer services? More efficient or less efficient government?