Plan would create commission for Beach's budget process

VIRGINIA BEACH

The municipal budget is a $1.76 billion action plan, explained in excruciating detail over hundreds of pages, each crammed with numbers.

There are two or three public hearings, but one happens the same night the City Council adopts the plan, leaving little time for members to think about any concerns raised.

"The process is flawed and dysfunctional," Councilman Bob Dyer said. "I don't think there's enough sets of eyes on it. We don't have enough look time on it."

A new plan on the council docket could change that.

Dyer and Councilwoman Rosemary Wilson have proposed a commission to study how budgets are created, analyzed and voted on in Virginia Beach. The council may discuss the idea Tuesday.

"It's oversight," Dyer said. "It gives people the impression someone's minding the store."

The panel, which could start meeting this fall, would be an extension of two task forces formed last year to critique how the Beach collects and spends public money.

The commission, according to a draft of the plan, would include one member from the Council of Civic Organizations, one representative each from the business and military communities, and five financial experts, including a certified public accountant.

The panel would work with the council and City Manager Jim Spore to implement the task force recommendations and make suggestions on the budget process.

"We know we have tough economic times," Wilson said. "We want to make sure we take our tax dollars seriously."

Catheryn Whitesell, the city's budget director, said supporting the would-be commission's data requests, like the task force before it, would use a significant amount of staff time.

Several council members have talked about "year-round budgeting," but Whitesell said the city really does that now.

Once a new budget starts July 1, staffers spend the summer reviewing year-end numbers and preparing for a November presentation to council forecasting the city's finances for the next five years.

Department budgets are compiled later in the year and then rolled into a proposed budget over the winter. The draft is released to the public - and the council - at the end of March. The council then makes its changes and approves it in May.

Adding more layers of process is not always good, Spore told council members at a meeting last month.

"You can get to the point where you spend too much time on your budget," Spore said. "The budget isn't the most important thing you do."

Dyer and Wilson plan to follow the budget commission proposal with a strategic plan initiative. Although the idea is short on details now, both say they'll roll out the concept in August. They paint the plan as a business model that links the budget to the city's master plan and economic development strategies.

Wilson called it a vision statement for Virginia Beach.

"We have something called a strategic plan, but it's probably not the type of strategic plan we really need to have," she said. "This is really going to pull all the different areas together."

Richard Quinn, (757) 222-5119, richard.quinn@pilotonline.com