City Council budget talks starting early this year

In a highly unusual move, Lynchburg City Council will engage in preliminary budget talks next month before any recommendations are made by the city manager.

Traditionally, such deliberations are held in the spring and start only after City Manager Kimball Payne unveils his budget proposal in early March. Council then responds to and revises that plan over the course of several weeks.

This year’s accelerated deliberation schedule was adopted after Payne approached officials in December seeking early guidance on topics ranging from spending cuts to tax hikes.

Council doesn’t typically play such a direct role in shaping the city manager’s budget recommendations. In explaining his request, Payne referenced the austere revenue climate, which he has described as the most challenging of his career.

“We’ve never faced anything like this before,” he said in an interview. “We thought last year was different, but it’s only getting tougher.

“This is going to be a unique and different year. I think doing things in a unique and different way will inform the process and give me a little better sense of Council’s interests as I put the proposal together.”

Council has scheduled a special all-day budget retreat for Feb. 6.

Payne has asked members at that time to consider six specific questions:

• What are your priorities regarding services provided to citizens?
• As cuts are considered, is there anything that is untouchable?
• Which services, programs or activities could be stopped?
• Are there any new initiatives you would like to consider?
• What are your thoughts on actions to increase revenues (via taxes, fees or policy changes)?
• What are your capital improvement priorities?

This is the latest in a series of unprecedented steps taken by the city manager to gather advice as he ponders a slew of unappetizing budget choices.

Payne has directed all city departments to draw up a “budget scenario” that envisions a 10 percent drop in funding. He used a similar tactic last year as a means of generating cost-cutting ideas.

Those documents are not being made available to the public on the grounds that they are the city manager’s working papers — one of the allowable exemptions to Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act — but select highlights were presented to City Council.

Possibilities raised include eliminating 126 positions and cutting $3 million in support for local schools. Payne, who is still scheduled to present his budget proposal in March, was quick to note nothing was set in stone.

Last October, the city convened a three-part citizen engagement forum centered on the coming year’s budget.

That program, which had around 70 participants, ended by asking the audience to pick out which services they felt were essential and which were expendable.

A similar program was also conducted exclusively for city employees and drew close to 600 participants, or roughly half of the local government’s workforce.

A summary of the findings of both groups is expected to be presented sometime in the next month or so.

The budget currently under discussion applies to the new fiscal year that will begin July 1.