Informing the Public About City Budgeting

As far as the public is concerned, the city’s budget process has begun a couple of months early this year. That’s because city officials have decided to sponsor a series of workshops that will allow residents to participate in the budget-making process.

This new approach to constructing Lynchburg’s budget is a great idea. It creates an opportunity for officials to gather public feedback on next year’s budget. But that feedback comes during the early stages of the process, and not at the end when many of the budget figures are set in concrete. Feedback at that point becomes much more contentious.

The workshops, the first of which was held last week, were born out of adversity brought on by the struggling economy. City Manager Kimball Payne noted that officials will face tough decisions in the coming budget season. The state will have fewer dollars to pass along to localities, and local revenues themselves are still shrinking.

“We hope this informs the budget process,” Payne said. “We want citizens to understand that they have a role in government, particularly at the local level. They have influence.”

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About 65 participants discovered that last week as they were broken up in small groups and given three questions to discuss. What do you love about Lynchburg? What role do citizens play in creating the community? What is the role of government in creating the community?

Answers to those questions should give officials some insight into what public services are most important and improve the quality of life in the city. Had that question been asked early on last year, the administration would not have proposed to close the downtown library. It was not closed, but it took a public outcry to prevent it from happening.

Comments on the role of citizens and the role of government in the community will give the city administration some insight into what residents think they can do for themselves and what the city should do in the way of providing public services.

Several who attended the first workshop said they did so to speak up on behalf of a specific department or service. Others said they came to learn more about the budget process and take advantage of the opportunity to get more involved with city government.

One resident said he had never taken part in such a government forum, but he wanted “to understand how the process works. I know it’s very complicated, especially now when there are all these cuts coming down from above and the city has to decide how to make up the lost aid. I’d like to understand how they make those decisions.”

The second workshop will take place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at James River Conference Center, 400 Court St., and is open to city residents and business owners.

Greater understanding of the budget at this level should make the process easier when it is brought into public view early next spring. When residents understand why a particular service or program costs so much, they are much more likely to embrace it than to criticize it as wasteful spending. That, at least, is one hope of officials conducting the workshops.