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Staff briefs council on mid‑biennial budget ordinance cleanup; commit to improved data access
Summary
City staff described proposed language cleanups to the mid‑biennial budget ordinance, an adjustment to bimonthly budget discussions, and pledged to ensure council budget managers have read-only access to financial reporting systems.
City budget staff and a city manager’s office representative briefed the council on proposed cleanup changes to the mid‑biennial budget ordinance and updates to the council’s budget process.
“Super high level, a lot of cleanup on wording in some of this,” a staff speaker said, describing coordination with legal and budget staff and noting that the council’s budget discussions would move to a bimonthly cadence. The revisions are intended to align ordinance language with state RCWs and to reflect an operational change to how budget discussions are scheduled.
Council member McCatkhart pressed staff on timely access to data and asked whether the city would provide a longer-range, multi-year outlook as part of the mid‑biennial review. “What is the commitment to making sure that we have kind of timely up to date data related to the budget… and in particular … a 6 year outlook,” the council member asked.
City staff and Mr. Boston said financial information is available and that they are working to make dashboards more public-facing. Boston told the council he would meet with the council’s budget manager to confirm existing read-only FMS and Questica access and to resolve any remaining access gaps.
Council members said read-only access for the council’s budget manager would help reduce duplicative analysis and speed responses to emerging budget issues. Staff committed to follow up with the manager and to provide a plan for improved access and consistent data sources ahead of the next budget review cycle.
No formal vote on ordinance text was recorded in the agenda-review transcript; staff indicated they had already circulated drafts and would return with final language and the requested access arrangements.
