Rethinking Budgeting Forum

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  • 1.  Budget Kick-Off

    Posted Apr 23, 2025 09:48 AM

    What do other Cities do for Budget Kick Off? For our previous Finance Director we would have a Budget Kick Off Meeting with all Department heads to give all budget forms, and documents for preparation and relate any updates for the coming budget. I was thinking of having a virtual kick off rather than in person meeting but wanted to see how other cities handle this



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    Brittney Hogan
    Finance Director
    City of Port Lavaca
    Port Lavaca TX
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  • 2.  RE: Budget Kick-Off

    Posted Apr 24, 2025 02:55 PM

    We've been doing a hybrid budget kickoff for a while because of differing remote work schedules, but we have a great hybrid conference room that makes it easy to bridge between the in-person and remote staff. 

    I like to do two separate budget kickoffs - one for operating and one for capital. They each have a different budget manual, calendar and process (and usually different people involved) so for us it makes sense to do them independently, but depending on the size of the community it might not be efficient to do that. I also use the kickoffs as a chance to re-orient people with the roles of the finance staff, and to highlight other related resources (ex. I have the sustainability & resilience director talk for a few minutes about identifying sustainability opportunities within capital projects). It's helpful to put faces to names. 

    In addition to the kickoff meeting, I'm working on pulling together a "budget bootcamp" to get everyone on the same page with our accounting processes, and I'm hoping to do a budget newsletter in the fall to keep the department heads up to date on the budget calendar and deadlines (probably aspirational but maybe if I write it down here I'll have to commit!). 

    I really love having the kickoff meetings as an opportunity to bring everyone - senior managers, mid-managers, office managers, etc. - together into the same setting as a reminder that we are one team, and to set the message and tone for the budget year ahead!



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    Rosalyn Impink
    Budget Officer
    Town of Lexington
    Lexington MA
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Budget Kick-Off

    Posted May 01, 2025 11:34 AM

    We are a school district so we have staff at several different locations. We have one kickoff for school principals and we have a separate one for departments.

    For the departments, we do two kickoff meetings, one in-person and the other virtual. The reason for having a virtual option is to provide staff another opportunity to attend in case they cannot attend the in-person meeting. We have the attendees register for one or both options. 

    We use the kickoff meeting to set the expectations for what can be expected during the budget process and also highlight key points that we need departments to keep in mind when building their budgets. We provide deadlines and dates and times to schedule one-on one meetings if someone requires that extra help. The key point we stress on is that the budget team is there to assist and provide guidance during the process.  

    One advantage of having a virtual meeting is that we record it and share it out with the departmental staff in case they are not able to attend. 



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    Harpreet Hora
    Executive Director, Budget Services
    Atlanta Independent School System
    Atlanta GA
    (404) 983-6108
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    Original Message