Minutes 03/29/2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

March 29, 2016 At a Called Meeting of the City Council on Tuesday, March 29, 2016, there were present: Mayor Kenneth I. Wright, Vice Mayor Elizabeth M. Psimas, William E. Moody, Jr., Paige D. Cherry, Dr. Mark M. Whitaker, City Manager L. Pettis Patton. 16 - 102 - The following call for the meeting was read: "Please attend a Called Meeting of the City Council to be held in the City Council Chamber, 801 Crawford Street, 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 29, 2016 for the purpose of the presentation of the proposed Operating and Capital Improvement Plan Budgets. In addition, you may consider a motion to go into a Closed Meeting. By order of the Mayor." 16 - 103 - The following item was discussed in Public Work Session: 1. Presentation of Proposed Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Plan by Dr. L. Pettis Patton, City Manager I am pleased to transmit the FY 2017 Proposed General Fund Budget, totaling $238,037,007, a $2.26 million or 1% increase over the FY 2016 budget. The overall $651,558,103 proposed budget total is . As the new City Manager, I am pleased to present the proposed FY 2017 budget which structurally balanced is with one-time revenues used for one-time expenditures and recurring revenues used for recurring expenditures. This has been achieved with NO NEW TAXES AND NO NEW FEES. ( In accordance with the General Finance Officer AssociationGFOA), “The budget is a guide that determines the direction of Government. It is arguably the single most important document routinely prepared by governments.” One hundred years ago, in the city of Portsmouth, Mayor J.T. Hanvey presented the annual Mayor’s message discussing the adoption to the city-manager form of government and budget challenges. The guiding principles stated in that annual message are still relevant today. To quote Mayor Hanvey: “A large majority of our people are anticipating wonderful improvements under our new form of City Government, and the Council should strive to accomplish for our City, with the assistance of the City Manager, the highest obtainable efficiency. We do not know that a great many improvements can be made, as it will require a larger expenditure of funds than the City is able to supply in order to have all of the desirable and necessary improvements which the City Manager will, no doubt, see the necessity for. The budget of 1917 shows that he will have sufficient revenue only to meet the running expenses of the City, and, therefore, any saving of funds or additional services must be due to efficient cooperation between the Manager, the City employees, and the City Council. We shall expect to see a more faithful attention to duty by the City Officials and other employees, under the supervision of the Manager, but must not look for the impossible and should give the Manager a fair chance and not be too impatient for results. There is probably not a single Department of the city which cannot be improved upon and he is expected to bring about better conditions in all of the Departments.” Guiding Principles In the development of the FY 2017 proposed budget process, we remained steadfast to the guiding principles outlined in my Oath of Office speech:  To create a bright and prosperous future redefined by collaboration, unification and rededication through citizen and community engagement.