08-01-18 Personnel and Finance (Budget Overview)

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i •CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK will follow. We are making sure to do the internal work to ensure that what we bring before you is really crisp and is ready by the time it comes to this chamber. Some of these are still a bit of a moving target as we find the budget proposal going into this fall. He continued,I want to acknowledge and appreciate the opportunities we have had to draw resident feedback,both informally and formally.There have been Mayor's Night Out events,neighborhood meetings and also the joint Council/Administration/Resident Budget meeting. The overall context of the budget begins with the fiscal environment. Indiana has rightly earned a reputation as a place that has a low tax environment. The other side of that coin is that it leaves us in the local government having to be extremely efficient and judicious about the use of the resources we get because there is no question or opportunity to casually or lightly find more revenue. We really have to work within the constraints we have been given. That is even truer as we look to the next couple of years because of the provision for property tax caps that doesn't kick in for our County until 2020. We've been calling it the fiscal curb, not wanting to call it a cliff, but it is definitely something we have been talking about in this chamber for at least two (2) years now. We will see continued attention to that in 2019 as this is the last, but one (1), budget to prepare for that. You could say it is the last budget we have to work with before that dip in revenue takes effect. However,this ye ,we have seen that assessed value growing and property taxes increasing so we do have a three point eight percent (3.8%) increase from 2017. We are not budgeting quite like that and are budgeting more conservatively, but we are hoping to see some kind of increase in 2019 as well. Councilmember Oliver Davis arrived at the meeting at 5:06 p.m. He went on,The economy is growing and the population is growing. Obviously there is an increase in a gathering sense of momentum in the community and there is a great level of civic energy. We also have unusually healthy finances, especially for a City our size and an economy like ours. We are proud of that and are going to work hard to maintain it. Unemployment remains low and is in the condition that most economists would consider full employment.However,we know that there are still a lot of people who are left out of this economy. The major initiatives we have spent the most time and energy on as an Administration in cooperation with the Council continue to develop. Quality of Place investments are being made across the City,My SB Parks &Trails is getting into full-swing now and we are paying more attention to inclusive economic growth as well as neighborhood efforts through Diversity, Human Capital and Inclusion. He continued, You will often hear me talk about the values of the City and I think it is always worth revisiting these at the onset of the budget season too. Any time we are making the case to add or subtract, we should do it with regard to the values that animate our Administration. The first (1st) one (1) is Excellence and that is because it takes resources to deliver excellent services. For us,that means being the best in the State,having a plan to get there, or being in the top twenty- five percent(25%)in the Country on everything we do. The next is Accountability which includes transparency but it's not only transparency,it is making sure that people have confidence that their government is serving them and using their resources well. Innovation is the next one (1) and that is one (1) in which we have made a lot of investments. Innovation is not the same thing as Technology but is often required to do things more efficiently and effectively. We invest in the types of technological resources that are required. Inclusion is a central value for us and is something we have identified more resources for over time. We work to make sure both the make- up of our Administration and the character of our work with our interactions in the private sector EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TTD 574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 2