Brent
06-04-2004, 11:05 AM
Citizen Budget Review (“The People’s Money”)
Seventh Meeting 06/03/2004
Participants:
(* indicates attendance at this meeting)
Robin Joyce (helped facilitate first meeting only)
Adam Arnold (covering some meetings for the Cary News)
* Mike Dodson
* Matthew Danielson
* Brent Miller
John Finn
Katherine Haney
Daryl Baker
Josh Mills
Ray Czarnecki
Bynum Walter
Matt Walter
* Ron Woodard
Ken Elowitz
Darryl Black
Tom McCuiston
* Cathy Heath
Don Hyatt
Don Frantz
* Kelly Commiskey
Lynne Loots
Betty Pickett
June Schmidt
Anita Porter
Cas Nowak
* Karen Griffin
Spencer Combos
Mike Heath
Council members present this meeting:
Julie Robison
New Participants since previous session:
None this time
Notes Since Last Meeting:
· Don Hyatt has set up a forum and e-mail list on the carypolitics.org Web site for use by the group for general discussion (thanks, Don!). We need to make more effective use of this resource.
· We submitted several questions/requests for information to Town Staff and received excellent answers from Scott Fogleman
Agenda:
· Determine high/low priorities for any remaining areas of the budget that we want to address
· Generate an outline for our final report
· Discuss how our final report will be presented
Requests for Information:
Brent will consolidate these on behalf of the group and send to appropriate staff members to ask for more data:
· No new ones
Questions/General Observations:
· From the book Reinventing Government: the state of Oklahoma appropriates only 95% of estimated reventues. Any revenues over 100% of projections must be placed in a separate revenue fund
· From the same book: if department funds are not spent in one year, they are lost (encouraging unnecessary spending). One government eliminated line items, allowing department managers to move money around within their department, and also let them keep any money they saved from one year to the next.
· Final observation from this book: one government encouraged employees to come up with money-saving ideas and let them keep a percentage of the money that they saved.
è The group consensus is that we like ALL of these ideas. Could some of these be implemented?
Discussion
· See above
Ideas Going Forward:
· This is our last meeting for this budget cycle. We may want to pursue continuing this group’s efforts in some fashion, perhaps suggesting that a permanent (i.e., for each annual budget cycle), perhaps Town-sanctioned citizens advisory board/commission be established. This will be addressed in the final report.
· Encourage more informal meetings of subset of council members with citizen groups (invited “focus groups”, almost like Citizens Advisory Councils).
Next Steps:
· Request any follow-up information from Staff (none new)
· No additional in-person meetings scheduled
· Brent will prepare a draft final report and accompanying presentation by next Monday June 7 and post on the carypolitics.org budget forum. We will plan to present this, as a group, at the budget public hearing at the June 10 Town Council meeting.
· Don Hyatt will e-mail the draft final report and accompanying presentation to the entire group for comments and approval. All group members will have an opportunity to opt out of the group’s findings or present their own “minority opinions” or individual input.
Please note any omissions or corrections.
Seventh Meeting 06/03/2004
Participants:
(* indicates attendance at this meeting)
Robin Joyce (helped facilitate first meeting only)
Adam Arnold (covering some meetings for the Cary News)
* Mike Dodson
* Matthew Danielson
* Brent Miller
John Finn
Katherine Haney
Daryl Baker
Josh Mills
Ray Czarnecki
Bynum Walter
Matt Walter
* Ron Woodard
Ken Elowitz
Darryl Black
Tom McCuiston
* Cathy Heath
Don Hyatt
Don Frantz
* Kelly Commiskey
Lynne Loots
Betty Pickett
June Schmidt
Anita Porter
Cas Nowak
* Karen Griffin
Spencer Combos
Mike Heath
Council members present this meeting:
Julie Robison
New Participants since previous session:
None this time
Notes Since Last Meeting:
· Don Hyatt has set up a forum and e-mail list on the carypolitics.org Web site for use by the group for general discussion (thanks, Don!). We need to make more effective use of this resource.
· We submitted several questions/requests for information to Town Staff and received excellent answers from Scott Fogleman
Agenda:
· Determine high/low priorities for any remaining areas of the budget that we want to address
· Generate an outline for our final report
· Discuss how our final report will be presented
Requests for Information:
Brent will consolidate these on behalf of the group and send to appropriate staff members to ask for more data:
· No new ones
Questions/General Observations:
· From the book Reinventing Government: the state of Oklahoma appropriates only 95% of estimated reventues. Any revenues over 100% of projections must be placed in a separate revenue fund
· From the same book: if department funds are not spent in one year, they are lost (encouraging unnecessary spending). One government eliminated line items, allowing department managers to move money around within their department, and also let them keep any money they saved from one year to the next.
· Final observation from this book: one government encouraged employees to come up with money-saving ideas and let them keep a percentage of the money that they saved.
è The group consensus is that we like ALL of these ideas. Could some of these be implemented?
Discussion
· See above
Ideas Going Forward:
· This is our last meeting for this budget cycle. We may want to pursue continuing this group’s efforts in some fashion, perhaps suggesting that a permanent (i.e., for each annual budget cycle), perhaps Town-sanctioned citizens advisory board/commission be established. This will be addressed in the final report.
· Encourage more informal meetings of subset of council members with citizen groups (invited “focus groups”, almost like Citizens Advisory Councils).
Next Steps:
· Request any follow-up information from Staff (none new)
· No additional in-person meetings scheduled
· Brent will prepare a draft final report and accompanying presentation by next Monday June 7 and post on the carypolitics.org budget forum. We will plan to present this, as a group, at the budget public hearing at the June 10 Town Council meeting.
· Don Hyatt will e-mail the draft final report and accompanying presentation to the entire group for comments and approval. All group members will have an opportunity to opt out of the group’s findings or present their own “minority opinions” or individual input.
Please note any omissions or corrections.