3.05.020 Operating budget policies.
A. The budget is a plan for allocating resources. The objective is to enable service delivery with allocated resources. Services must be delivered to the citizens at a level which will meet real needs as efficiently and effectively as possible.
B. The borough’s goal is to pay for all recurring expenditures with recurring revenues and to use nonrecurring revenues for nonrecurring expenditures.
C. It is important that a positive undesignated fund balance and a positive cash balance be shown in all governmental funds at the end of each fiscal year.
D. When deficits appear to be forthcoming within a fiscal year, spending during the fiscal year must be reduced sufficiently to create a positive undesignated fund balance and a positive cash balance.
E. When possible, the borough will integrate performance measurement and productivity indicators within the budget. This should be done in an effort to improve the productivity of borough programs and employees. Productivity analysis should become a dynamic part of the borough administration.
F. The budget must be structured so that the assembly and the general public can readily establish the relationship between expenditures and the achievement of service objectives.
G. The individual department and agency budget submissions must be prepared with the basic assumption that the assembly will always attempt not to increase the current tax rates.
H. Budgetary review by the assembly will focus on the following basic concepts:
1. Staff Economy. The size and distribution of staff will be a prime concern. The assembly will seek to limit staff increases to areas where approved program growth and support absolutely requires additional staff and to reduce staff where this can be done without adversely affecting approved service levels.
2. Capital Construction. Emphasis will be placed upon continued reliance on a viable level of paydown capital construction to fulfill needs in an assembly-approved comprehensive capital improvements program.
3. Program Expansions. Proposed expansion to existing programs and services must be submitted as budgetary increments requiring detailed justification. Every proposed program or service expansion will be scrutinized on the basis of its relationship to the health, safety, and welfare of the community.
4. New Programs. New programs or services must also be submitted as budgetary increments requiring detailed justification. New programs or services will be evaluated on the same basis as program expansion plus an analysis of long-term fiscal impacts.
5. Existing Service Costs. The justification for base budget program costs will be a major factor during budget review.
6. Administrative Costs. In all program areas, administrative overhead costs should be kept to an absolute minimum.
I. Functions of all departments and agencies should be reviewed in an effort toward reducing duplicate activities within the borough government and the autonomous and semi autonomous agencies which receive appropriations from the borough.
J. The budget will provide for adequate maintenance of capital plant and equipment and for its orderly replacement.
K. The administration will maintain budgetary controls at the character level within each organizational unit. (Characters are broad classifications of expenditures; i.e., fringe benefits and contractual services.)
L. The preparation and distribution of monthly budget status reports, interim financial statements, and annual financial reports are required.
M. The borough will remain current in payments to the retirement system.
N. The borough will develop and annually update a long-range three-to-five-year financial forecasting system that will include projections of revenues, expenditures, and future costs and financing of capital improvements that are included in the capital budget.
O. The borough will develop, and annually update, a financial trend monitoring system which will examine the fiscal trends from the preceding five years. (Trends such as revenues and expenditures per capita and adjusted for inflation, liquidity, and operating deficits.) Where possible, trend indicators will be developed and tracked for specific elements of the borough’s fiscal policy. [Ord. 90-10 §2, 1990. Formerly §3.01.020].