How to make sense of local budgets || Office Hours || Greg Sund, MPA and Edward Erfurt

00:00 Introduction

09:00 What would you say are some of the simplest ways to learn how a city budget works?

14:14 How can you increase the odds that doing GOOD municipal budgeting gets into the "Institutional memory"?

16:41 What is the most important page in the budget? Where do governments hide expenses in the budget?

20:59 Budget page example

24:15 What's the best way of determining whether expenditures in a budget are reasonable for the City, or whether the City is doing the right thing with its budget?

31:30 Accurately accounting for depreciation/budgeting for replacement costs is NOT something most local govs do due to capacity.... What can be done to rectify this?

41:14 Are there any smaller cities which have implemented ST-thinking and are less budget strapped than years ago?

46:17 What are some questions citizens can ask themselves and/or city leaders about the hidden costs of new developments like stadiums, big chain stores, etc.? How should we evaluate these types of projects from a financial perspective?

52:25 What's the difference between priority based and traditional budgeting? How can you tell which your municipality is using?

Referenced in the session

• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/6/8/mds2022-your-citys-accounting-is-unnecessarily-obscure-its-time-to-pull-back-the-veil
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/6/12/santa-monica
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/5/4/the-hays-document
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/7/7/but-my-city-doesnt-spend-very-much-on-infrastructure 
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/16/where-did-the-money-go 
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/11/11/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investments-md2020
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money 
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/2/7/wasting-time
• https://www.dearwinnipeg.com/2023/05/09/the-road-expansion-lobby-doesnt-want-you-to-read-this/
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/5/the-cost-of-an-extra-foot
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/2/22/colorado-development-scheme-yields-billion-dollar-debt
• https://www.fieldofschemes.com/ 
  
  

Generally

• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/10/19/value-per-acre-analysis-a-how-to-for-beginners
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/category/%23DotheMath 
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/2/20/how-to-dothemath-for-non-math-majors 
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/6/2/fixing-the-potholes-requires-digging-deeper
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/1/21/the-galesburg-papers-part-1-the-diagnosis
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/1/28/the-galesburg-papers-part-2-the-cure
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/10/15/the-solvent-city-what-does-it-look-like
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/9/my-journey-from-free-market-ideologue-part-4
• https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020
• https://actionlab.strongtowns.org/hc/en-us/articles/360056758591-Transparent-Local-Accounting-Top-Content 

About Office Hours

Our door is wide open once a week for Strong Towns members to come and discuss how to build resilience and prosperity in their communities. Each week will focus on a different topic with a member of the Strong Towns team. The tone is casual and conversational. Drop in late if you need to; you’ll be just as welcome.

Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET on Zoom

Submit your questions and ideas for topics in advance as you register, or ask them on the fly. Just so you know, pre-submitted questions and topics will be given priority during the conversation. 

Schedule & Registration Details Are Available Here

Can't attend? Catch the replay in Action Lab once it gets posted.