Council signals limited refresh of Flagstaff’s priority-based budgeting: moderate changes, low effort

Rick (PBB administration team) reviewed the city’s Priority-Based Budgeting history and offered two approaches: amend the existing priorities and objectives or start from scratch. He described outreach approaches and the relative staff effort of each option.

Nut graf: Council members and the city manager weighed the trade-offs and coalesced around a direction to pursue a modest update rather than a full rewrite. The preferred approach reflected a ‘moderate change, low effort’ refresh and a council-to-community process in which council shapes proposed updates before broader public outreach.

Several council members said they wanted new council members to weigh in but did not see a reason to overturn or restart the entire PBB framework. Council member House recommended community-first outreach in some circumstances, while City Manager Greg Clifton and others said it is reasonable for council to propose refined objectives first because council members are the elected representatives and are closely engaged with community priorities.

Rick described the administrative logistics of outreach, including prior work the city did via ResourceX/Patrick Technology and staff’s plan to develop an outreach schedule if council directs a refresh. Council members suggested options for frequency (every other year vs. less often) and asked staff to compare other jurisdictions’ practices.

Ending: Council’s tentative direction at the close of the retreat was to pursue a modest amendment process with low additional staff effort, staged as council-to-community outreach and a possible deeper review at a longer interval. Staff will prepare an outreach plan and comparative examples from other cities if council wants further options.