Balance or Bust Community Congress March 27, 2004

Objective Your City Council Team must decrease spending (or increase revenue) by $2,000,000 by the end of the fiscal year. Picture of board

Team members consecutively roll the die and draw cards. Each card describes: – a service that can be cut or reduced, and – the amount of the savings

To Begin Pick a Mayor and a City Clerk –The Mayor is the group facilitator –The Clerk keeps the record

General Fund Expenditures $31,365,000

Non Department Squares Grant Application Grant Award Econ. Devel. Opportunity Econ. Devel. Project Fails Bad Economic News Pot O’Gold

The Clerk keeps the record City Clerk’s Ledger Sheet DEPTSERVICETOTAL OF PROGRAM AMOUNT CUT COMMENTS CouncilCommissioners’ dinner $5,000 $3,000 Scale event down to a reception Sample

Midyear Budget Adjustment Our Fiscal Year is July 1 to June 30. “Midyear” is January 1. When you reach January: –Stop and review your ledger sheet –Are you going to reach your goal? After midyear – the cuts are only worth ½ as much

End of the Fiscal Year At the end of the fiscal year, the team will review the cuts and discuss what they learned about priorities for City spending.

Your group’s “Mayor” will report back to the rest of the Congress on how well your team did: 1.What cuts did you make? 2.What cuts were the easiest or hardest to make? 3.How did the Team Council prioritize its spending?

4.What criteria did you use to make cuts? 5.What core values did your Council Team feel were important to the overall community? 6.What was the single most important thing you learned from this exercise?