Today's Feature
Formation
of Policy Discussed.
The City Council and Mayor
Kenneth Johnson met Tuesday evening in City Hall
for a work session concerning the upcoming budget
process. City Administrator Tom Short outlined
the schedule for various meetings expected
between now and the adoption of the budget in
June.
"There was some discussion
last year that there wasn’t enough Council
input. I think this provides for a little more
Council input throughout the process," said
Short.
One change in the process
recommended by Short is a performance based
expenditures.
"When we run a traditional
line item budget, that just basically allocates
resources the City has," said Short,
"we don’t really account for how that
money is used on the work product that’s
produced."
The Budget Committee has
recommended that the change be implemented over a
period of time.
"Based on the timing that
is involved," Short continued, "it
looks like we will be trying to get our
measurements criteria together this year for
2002’s budget. So the departments are trying
to come up with a handful of performance criteria
that they will start tracking. At least start
getting into the bean counting stage of it to
find out exactly what we are doing with the
money, then eventually get into accounting for
how effectively the money is being spent, and
what kind of output is being produced for the
money we are giving to the departments."
Short also outline what he felt
the budget should accomplish.
"The budget traditionally
is suppose to have four components to it,"
explained Short. "One is a financial plan.
Another is a communication document for all the
users, the Council plus the general public and
the other entities that use it. The other one is
an operation guide for the departments on how
they are going to be spending their resources.
And the other one is the policy statement by the
Council and what they intend to accomplish with
it. I hope we will get there in a little while,
probably a couple of years or a few years before
we get to that process. But, at least to start
the process this year, we want to go ahead and
talk about some of these goals and objectives and
see if there are any problems with it."
The Budget Committee
recommendations for goals and objectives were
provided in a written five page document.
"Another item we talked
about," Short continued, "was moving
toward cost recovery for the different services
that we provide. We had talked about initially
trying to recover full cost. The Budget Committee
recommended that, at least this year, we start
analyzing what our costs are on the different
services that we provide so we can determine
somewhere down the road if we want to recover
full cost or partial cost, or how we want to do
that."
Short also spoke of possible
increased efficiencies that could be gained by
taking advantage of the fiber optic loop
installed by CW&EP.
"Last year we projected a
cost of about $211,000 to hook the City up to the
fiber network, plus provide the electronics and
the entrances to all the facilities," said
Short. "So we could start communicating with
each other, at least at a very small degree with
our email. What the utility is talking about now
is putting the phone system on the network and
cutting out the line charges to Southwestern Bell
and just have one interconnect with Southwestern
Bell local office. Apparently it’s not that
difficult to input that once you have the
capacity to do that. CW&EP is looking in that
direction, on consolidating all of our phone
services, the hospital, the library, us and
CW&EP. They are also, looking down the road,
looking at the possibility of being an internet
service provider. We would have high speed access
to the fiber as opposed to the phone line."
Short says many communities
have the capability for citizens to pay for
licenses, permits, or taxes on line.
Letter to the Editor
Opinions expressed
reflect those of the writer
and not necessarily those of the Mornin' Mail.
Year
2000 Predictions By Wilky!
1. Carthage’s City Leaders
will finally purchase the new property for an
airport. It only makes sense to me, $2,000.00 an
acre for the new airport and sell the old airport
for $100,000.00 per acre!
2. We will recognize the
excellent buy the County Commissioners made on
the old Bank of Carthage building.
3. Neosho and Webb City will
pass Carthage in population.
4. We will still have way to
many empty businesses in Carthage including:
Shoneys, City Wide Auto Parts, Big Smith
buildings, Consumers Markets, Schreibers Bacon
Plant, Old Dodge Car Lot and others.
5. You’ll soon be able to
take a Paddleboat Ride from the 2000 head Dairy
Barn Lagoon near Avilla, down to Spring River and
right on into Carthage!
6. A strong wind from the
northeast will tell us why Brent Erwin, near
Avilla, and others didn’t want a 2000 head
dairy in the county!
7. A large corporation will
soon recognize my many talents and hire me so I
won’t have time to write letters to the
editor.
8. I’ll be the last person
in Carthage to learn Spanish.
9. The stock market will
continue to climb and make us all feel richer
whether we are or not!
10. George Bush will not ask Al
Gore to help him move into the White House.
Jeff Wilkinson, Carthage
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