Revising the budget document in the city of Glendora, California.

• Author: Cohen, Gavin

The City of Glendora, the "Pride of the Foothills," has a population of 52,500 and lies at the foot of the San Gabriel Valley Mountains. The city has nine functional departments that provide the following services: public safety, public works, community services, administration, personnel, city clerk, library, planning and redevelopment, and fiscal services. The city was incorporated in 1911 as a general-law city.

The city's budget document and budget process had remained unchanged for many years. The document reflected a process that had become stagnant. Old technology prevented staff from being able to incorporate any changes. The budget was produced on time each year and the adage "if it is not broken why fix it" prevailed.

Both city council and the public wanted staff to make the budget document easier to read, easier to understand, and more user-friendly. The old budget document was produced on antiquated software that did not allow for any creative formatting. This challenge combined with availability of new technology were the major forces behind the change. Additional reasons to revamp the old format were a new city manager, a new finance director, and a new assistant finance director. These three professionals were committed to ensuring that producing a newly formatted budget document would raise the level of financial reporting, become a source of pride for all departments and the city, and change staff perception of the budget process.

Process Overview

The changes required a substantial amount of planning and organization. Some of the biggest obstacles were:

* lack of time to prepare and design the new formats;

* lack of dedicated staff assigned to the project;

* limited support and cooperation from all departments;

* limited PC skills by department end-users;

* sense of overwhelm in trying to accomplish too much; and,

* lack of meaningful performance measures.

Small finance departments generally do not have staff that can be dedicated specifically to one task or project. It was important that the finance department staff working on the project adopted a team approach and a we're-all-in-it-together attitude. The team consisted of the finance director, assistant finance director, accountant, and a management analyst. Even with all the planning, considerable overtime still was expended to accomplish the various tasks. This was necessary because of the many immovable budget deadlines.

Input from all departments was a vital...