Better Budgets – How to Mine What You Already Have

-Coffee Break Webinar -

Imagine what you could do for your community with an extra million dollars in the budget. What if you could free up those funds without increasing taxes or laying off employees?  The good news is, targeting your monetary priorities makes all this possible. In this Coffee Break Webinar, budgeting guru and Resource X Co-Founder Chris Fabian describes the power of Priority Based Budgeting (PBB).  Fabian’s methods can make the budgeting process easier and more comprehensible, as it has done for more than 170 local governments across North America.

Why Priority Based Budgeting?

Priority Based Budgeting has helped many jurisdictions achieve greater fiscal success. Boulder, CO used PBB to reallocate $1.7 million. After eight years, they were able to grow higher priority programs by over $40 million. Washington County, WI saved $590,000 in their first year with a PBB program.  Moffat County, CO was able to leverage a value of $31 million by partnering with other like-minded organizations from within their own community. Toledo, OH worked with their Chamber of Commerce to fund the City’s implementation of PBB, developing “Networked Enterprises” and achieving greater financial gain for both institutions.

Potential for Partnerships

“PBB is an agent for identifying who does what, and where partnerships could occur,” said Eric Keck, City Manager of Englewood, CO.

The Resource X platform has over 90,000 programs identified in its PBB database. An analysis of these PBB entities reveals that 60% of programs offered by local governments are ripe for partnership, mergers and consolidation opportunities. A city can free up millions of dollars by partnering with organizations in the community that are already providing the services needed.

How It Works

1. The first step is to identify your community’s needs. Data you collect from your NRC surveys can show you what those needs are, according to your residents themselves.
2. Examine the programs and services you provide and how much they cost.
3. Evaluate and score your programs. Those that best achieve results are deemed the highest priority programs. Programs that do not directly relate to the results you want rank lowest on the priority list. How do you know if you are spending too much or too little on programs and functions? The Resource X platform allows local government departments to compare their spending to those of their peers.
4. Allocate your resources accordingly. Low priority programs are the greatest opportunities to mine funds for other services and initiatives.

Municipalities fundamentally must identify what programs they offer, how much it costs to provide those programs, and how those programs influence desired results.

The Path to PBB

Benchmark your spending with other local governments + Assess fiscal health by analyzing long term trends + Identify services and place a cost on them = Priority Based Budgeting

Related Articles

• Ten Biggest Challenges of Local Government Budgeting
• 4 Things We Learned About Data, Leadership and Budgeting at The CPBB Conference
• Why Surveys are Still Valuable For Finding Out What Residents Want and Need