April, 2000

The budget and planning systems of Allegheny County should be an essential tool to attain the objectives of a sustainable region. The National Council on State and Local Budgeting recently developed 59 best budget practices to assist governments in meeting future challenges. Several of those practices have direct application to Allegheny County and the development of a sustainable community:

Among the mechanisms that might be considered are public hearings, surveys, meetings of leading citizens and citizen interest groups, government strategic planning processes, meetings of governmental employees, and workshops involving governmental administrative staff and/or the legislative body.

These elements may include local, regional, national, and international factors affecting the community, including-economic and financial factors, demographic trends, legal and regulatory issues, social and cultural trends, physical and environmental factors, intergovernmental issues, and technological change.

A government should have a process for evaluating programs and services to determine the relationship of these programs to the needs and priorities of the community. The review should include an assessment of the programs purposes, beneficiaries and needs served, the success in achieving goals, and issues, challenges, and opportunities affecting their provision in the future. An evaluation of factors affecting service delivery also should be undertaken, such as: funding issues; changes in technology; economic, demographic, or other factors that may affect demand; and legal or regulatory changes.

Care must be taken to evaluate the interaction between conflicting goals and develop a sufficient degree of consensus on priorities so that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the direction in which the government is heading.

Performance benchmarks help stakeholders better assess whether government performance in a particular area is acceptable or could be improved.

Stakeholder input can be obtained in a number of ways, including public hearings, advisory commissions, informal conversations, round-table discussions, TV and video presentations, opinion surveys, neighborhood meetings, office hours, letter writing, telephone calls, and email. A general-purpose public hearing shortly before final decisions are made on the budget is not adequate as the sole means of soliciting stakeholder input, especially on major issues. The process developed for obtaining stakeholder input should ensure that information is gathered in a timely and complete manner to be useful in budget decision-making.

The financial plan can include: an analysis of financial trends, assessments of problems or opportunities facing the jurisdiction, and a long-term forecast of revenues and expenditures that use alternative economic, planning, and policy assumptions.

Many local governments around the country are using the budget process to address issues of sustainability. For instance, Austin, Toronto, and Tucson have all incorporated sustainable goals and strategies into their budget and management structures.

The Toronto experience has led that community to realize that "applying sustainability principles to civic life would not only shift how we think about the outcomes of decisions, it also would suggest changes in the way decisions are made." Toronto has created a "Toronto Interdepartmental Environment Team" (TIE) to coordinate the activities of the city’s workforce to achieve the desired goals developed through a very public process.

Tucson, Arizona used a very public process to identify 17 goals that will lead toward a Livable Tucson. The region also developed indicators and benchmarks that are used to assess the attainment of those goals.

To implement Austin's vision of a sustainable community, the region’s legislative body has developed a budget process and a management organization that focuses on achieving the following outcomes. We recommend that Allegheny County review the below elements and incorporate them into its budget and finance goals: