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Board weighs adding pre-submission meetings between committee chairs, budget staff and department heads
Summary
The chair proposed an added step in the budget process—committee chairs meet with the budget officer, deputy budget officer and department heads before departments submit budget requests—several members supported small-group review while keeping public department hearings later in the process.
Chair (S5) reviewed the tentative budget calendar prepared by Jenna and proposed adding a pre-submission step: committee chairs meet with the budget officer, deputy budget officer and department heads before departments submit budgets. “Is that something that the board is interested in doing?” the chair asked.
Several members (S1, S4) supported the idea as a way to get better, more focused feedback from department heads: “I think that you will get better feedback doing it that way in a small group than as we have done in the past, but not eliminate that,” one member said. The preference was to use small-group meetings for preparatory feedback while preserving department hearings later in the calendar.
Members also discussed whether some questions or the meeting summary should be shared with department heads in advance, possibly adapted into a survey so department heads could respond on their own time. The chair said they would broach the subject at the department-head meeting tomorrow to gauge interest.
Next steps: The chair indicated they would raise the idea with administration at the department head meeting and, if supported, staff would work with committee chairs and the budget officer on the logistics; no formal direction or budget decision was recorded in the transcript.
