Fiscal committee seeks measurable priorities for 2027 budget, plans public deliberation

The fiscal committee on Feb. 27 moved to consolidate similar council-submitted outcomes into a smaller set of measurable priorities to guide the 2027 budget and make it easier for administration to translate council intent into funded actions. The chair said the goal is to present a concise, programmatic set of priorities to full council rather than a long, unfocused list.

The committee discussed grouping related items so that combined entries rise in priority; for example, members argued that “waste reduction” and “creating a composting program” overlap and should be treated together. "If you put them together, it brings [the priority] up to one of the top ones," a committee member said, urging synthesis rather than item-by-item parsing.

Jack McKim, the city controller, recommended evaluating each potential outcome against four budget-relevance criteria: whether an outcome is primarily government-driven, whether it is measurable, whether a funding allocation can be identified, and whether the outcome matters to both council and administration. He said structuring priorities that way would make them more useful for budgeting.