18 - Proposed Budget Discussion and Direction

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Memorandum TO: Governing Body FROM: Grayson Path, City Manager SUBJECT: Proposed FY20/21 Budget DATE: August 4, 2020 Introduction It is with pleasure that I present to you the City Manager's Proposed FY20/21 Budget. As each of you are aware, this is my first City of Paris Budget, and although it is not my first Municipal Budget to produce in my career, it nevertheless was a steep learning curve to step in to this role in late April 2020 and immediately attempt, among all of my other duties, to understand the City of Paris budget, from the City Charter, to State Code, to the very Accounting structure that forms the budget, much had to be reviewed in a very short period. Nevertheless, with the help of so many great City Staff, I am pleased with the product I am now presenting to you. I do though intend to perfect my process in years to come as I become more familiar with the City of Paris. Therefore, by all means please send me comments and feedback. My first item I intend to change next year will of course be to present this to you sooner. I thank you for your patience this year. After reviewing the City of Paris Charter, I have decided to structure this Memorandum in such a way that easily points back to each appropriate Section in the Charter. The duty and responsibility of a Public Servant is to carry out the Code of the City to the best of his/her ability, therefore in order to provide greater transparency to those reviewing this Memorandum for completeness to the Code, I will divide this Memorandum by the very Sections found in the Charter. This has the unintended consequence of breaking up a desired "flow", sometimes making this Memorandum bulky, but nevertheless it provides thoroughness as well as fulfills my obligation to you in providing the information required by the Charter. I will be making a presentation, summarizing this Memorandum, to the City Council on August 10, 2020. At that time, we will also touch on upcoming deadlines pursuant to the City Charter and Senate Bill 2. I will also be asking you at that meeting as to the next steps you, as a Governing Body, would like to proceed towards in order to review, discuss, consider, etc. the Proposed FY20/21 Budget including any workshops, employee meetings, additional information, etc. you would like to hold. Please be considering this in preparation for the August 101 discussion. I would also like to apologize to the Governing Body for the complexity of the material I am presenting to you at this time. The City Charter is clear as to what I must report on, therefore I have no room to maneuver for much of what is presented here. In addition, I hope the Governing Body can understand and appreciate that Municipal Budgets are indeed complex, for a reason. I have heard two different schools of thought by previous councils I have worked with. Some prefer many funds clearly breaking out the expenses through many different line items, while others prefer condensed and summarized funds with very few line items. The version you have before you in this Memorandum would fall under the first school of thought — many funds with many line items, thus breaking out the entire budget in to much more defined individual purposes. This of course produces a lengthy budget to go through and review, but, it is the most transparent approach you can have. A very condensed and summarized budget where line items are lumped together, while extremely easy for Staff to work with and Councils to flip through, is also much less transparent as the purpose of each line item is obscure, turning them more in to larger "miscellaneous" line items rather than subject -specific that is accomplished with more broken Page 1 of 15