There are so many ways to improve the county budget. There’s budget development, public engagement, data-informed decision-making, benchmarks, performance, need, state and federal mandates, policy priorities. The list is long.
And to be clear, this is not a come here/born here thing. Lots of people want a “better” budget. And because better is in the eye of the beholder, this post will make recommendations I think make the most sense based on my experience with municipal budgets.
I’ll submit the final document to the parties Friday, December 5. If you are interested in participating in the creation of this set of recommendations and/or sign on to the letters to the county administrator, supes, and school board, email your comments by December 3.
Foundational budget requirements
The county’s budget is, at least in theory, built on numerous local, state, and federal requirements and obligations. Examples include Compensation Board salary ranges, MOUs/MOAs, grant obligations, professional requirements (such as related to EMS), and debt service. Save for the county administrator and agency/department directors, very few people in the county will have knowledge about them. Thus, the county and Northumberland County School Board should identify all legal requirements, publish them on the website, brief supervisors and BOE members on them, and make them available to the public.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but the way the legal requirements are documented matters. Best case, a database would be used. The easier and more practical way is in a spreadsheet. Specific types and kinds of information would be sought and each type of information would be explained for ease of use and consistency. Once the file is created, it’s review and modification would become part of the annual budget process.
Why this matters: The Virginia Senate Finance Committee staff have correctly stated in the slide What do you need to know?, below, from Understanding Virginia’s Budget Process (PDF), that legislator budget decisions are made around the margins of the large center made up of legal requirements and other obligations. I would suggest the same is true for the county. For scale, the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget reports that two-thirds of revenue at the state level is obligated to specific programmatic expenditures. Some funding in Northumberland County is similarly committed. What is left outside the margins in Northerumberland County is to be determined. But no matter the amount, that’s typically where public and legislator interest is.
Using data for accountability
Data are often considered an accountability tool. And they can be. But only if chosen correctly, as outcomes or outputs measure different things.
Agencies and departments in Northumberland County government, including the schools, collect all manner of data. Northumberland County Sheriff’s Office, for example, collects and shares data every month on Facebook, including the number of traffic stops, welfare checks, and arrests. And Building and Zoning reports the number of building permits issued.
NOTE: Data alone are not sufficient. Data without policy goals when budgeting are not helpful. Further, the government must heed the advice of academic V. F. Ridgway who criticized the “What gets measured gets managed” mantra. Simon Caulkin, a columnist at The Guardian, summarized Ridgway’s argument: “What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so.” Data and evidence-driven governance expert Danny Buerkli added “Ridgway clearly was onto something in 1956. Not everything that matters can be measured. Not everything that we can measure matters.”
My recommendation is for the county administrator to work with agencies to identify the most important benchmarks and outcomes and outputs data to be included in their budget submission. Tying data and budget may not happen for FY 2027, but agencies and departments can certainly provide meaningful data, especially legal/regulatory/licensing data, to the CA for inclusion in the budget. To start the new year off right, I’d suggest each agency identify benchmark sources specific to their field as well as a list of data currently collected and/or reported to the feds (related to grants, legal requirements, and the like), and data requested by the Board of Supervisors. Finally, I urge the CA to package these lists as a budget resource and share with the supervisors and the public on the budget page of the website.
Public engagement in the budget process
For this particular discussion, I am thinking about the active engagement of stakeholders―individuals, businesses, policy wonks, regional actors―earlier in the budget process, starting with budget development.
Typically, public engagement happens at the end of the process, when the county has a proposed budget, one that is created by staff and given to the supervisors for consideration and action. This kind of engagement is pro forma and as a result, few meaningful public-informed discussions take place. More importantly, no meaningful changes happen. And while this is engagement, on a scale of 1-10, it ranks under 5. Maybe a three.
Starting earlier in the process would allow all parties to identify successes/challenges with current operations, raise important issues about community needs, provide data/research to inform/guide decision-making, and give county leadership necessary nudges to think about what the public, and even those in government, view as important changes. Certainly, a government-side commitment to deeper, more thoughtful planning and deliberation is required to effect this, and any other, change.
So what, exactly, would such engagement look like?
Earlier engagement can take many forms, including topic-focused community meetings sponsored by the Board of Supervisors, topic-focused community meetings sponsored by county government offices and agencies, and surveys. Emergency medical services is one such topic. The reliance on volunteers and the performance of volunteer emergency services, combined with the local struggle to maintain a sufficient number of trained and active volunteers, calls into the question the current bifurcated system. Housing, and in particular workforce housing, is another topic. Economic development is another.
To support the work, the government must do the following:
- Document legal requirements and obligations described above.
- Create a baseline budget. Simply put, the baseline would represent the cost of doing business the next year. The baseline would include the inflation rate used and the effect of inflation, with a public presentation by category (i.e., public education, public safety). The baseline would not include one-time allocations.
- Plan ways for the supervisors, alone or together, to engage their constituents. Some examples: Via a survey, a community meeting at which stakeholders identify their priorities and concerns, and a community priority-ranking meeting.
- Figure out how elected and appointed officials will use this information.
Please excuse typos, improper conjugations, and missing verbs. I’ve been working on this for a week and I’m seeing double.