Page 263 - Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council

THE BUDGET PROCESS

MAY

Department Directors return completed work papers to the Finance Director via the shared file. The Finance Director
prepares a summary of the departmental budget requests for the City Manager. The Finance Director also provides
revenue re-estimates and projections to the City Manager along with re-estimated and projected fund balances for the
next three years for the General Fund, Debt Service Fund, and these two funds combined. The City Manager uses
these long-range projections as a target for reducing proposed expenditures in the Department budget requests. His
goal is to balance proposed expenditures against the anticipated revenue and existing reserves to maintain fund
balances at an acceptable level.

JUNE

The City Manager reviews the proposed activity budgets with each Department Director. At this time, some items are
restored to the proposed activity budgets. Additional cuts usually are necessary to compensate for the items that have
been restored to the various budget proposals.

The Finance Director prepares a Proposed Budget Document that includes detailed revenue and expenditure
summaries, fund balance estimates and projections, summaries of each activity's budget request along with
documentation of all changes made by the City Manager, copies of all funded and unfunded decision packages, and a
narrative explanation of the issues that City Council faces and resolves during the upcoming budget deliberations.

JULY

The City Manager and Finance Director meet with City Council to canvass Councilmembers on any program additions
or deletions that City Council wishes to include in the Proposed Budget. At this meeting, the City Manager provides
City Council with a brief summary of any anticipated budget problems. The City Council provides direction for the City
Staff to follow in revising the Proposed Budget.

Toward the end of July (but no later than July 25), the City receives assessed valuation totals from the Tarrant Appraisal
District. The Finance Director finalizes property tax revenue projections.

CITY OF BENBROOK 2018-19 ANNUAL BUDGET
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