The City Council’s Budget Committee is set to discuss tomorrow how council members and San Diego residents might have more early input in the city’s budgeting process.
That committee is newly headed by Councilman Tony Young, who recently told my colleague Scott Lewis that he’s committed to starting the budget process now.
For the past three years, the council has adopted a resolution outlining its budget priorities, attaching memos from individual council members with their own preferences.
Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin told me that with a new council and a reconfigured Budget Committee, it seemed like time to see how that process is working and how it might be improved. (In a report to the committee, Tevlin states that members might want to ask the Mayor’s Office whether their early input has been “helpful or even considered.”)
Tevlin said it’s important for the mayor and council to have a “cooperative back-and-forth process” in crafting the budget, instead of the council simply reacting to the mayor’s proposals. This year the city is staring down a huge budget gap for the financial year starting in July.
You can read Tevlin’s report here. The Budget Committee meeting starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday at City Hall.