HomeMy WebLinkAboutFIN 2021-02-08 Item 1D - Budget - 2021-2022 Budget Survey
City of Tukwila
Allan Ekberg, Mayor
INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM
TO: Finance and Governance Committee
FROM: Laurel Humphrey, Legislative Analyst
DATE: February 2, 2021
SUBJECT: 2021-2022 Online Budget Survey
ISSUE
As part of its work plan, the Finance & Governance Committee requested further discussion
on last year’s online community survey and how it informed the final budget.
SUMMARY
With every budget cycle, the city strives to conduct meaningful community engagement to
ensure that public priorities and expectations for services are being met. This engagement has
taken place in the form of in-person workshops, open houses, mailings, Council Chats, public
hearings, surveys, and more. During the development of the 2019-2020 budget, the City did
this by seeking public input onto the Strategic Plan priorities that had been adopted in 2013.
This feedback resulted in the Council adopting amendments relating to racial equity,
gentrification, health, infrastructure, and technology.
Proposed 2021-2022 Budget
Community outreach on the proposed 2021-2022 budget looked different due to the
coronavirus emergency – since in-person meetings and open houses were not possible, the
City Council had to rely on virtual and online strategies, such as social media, email, virtual
public comment and public hearing, virtual listening sessions, and an online survey. Not only
were engagement opportunities limited, but the City Council was facing a very difficult budget
reality due to the loss of revenues associated with the pandemic leading to the need to reduce
services.
Survey Development
A cross departmental team convened last summer to develop an outreach plan including
messaging, strategies, and a draft survey that asked participants to rank priorities in a variety
of areas that staff had identified as possible service cuts. Staff presented this draft to the
Finance Committee in August, who shared concerns about the approach including potential
service changes that had not yet been discussed by the City Council. The Committee requested
that the survey be redrafted to be higher level and more consistent. After further analysis, staff
returned to the Finance Committee with a proposal to conduct a survey directly tied into the
City’s Priority- Based Budgeting framework that could be used and improved upon in future
years – this idea was modeled after one used by the City of Evanston, Illinois, which also uses
Priority-Based Budgeting. The Finance Committee approved this approach at its August 24,
2020 meeting. Staff then prepared a survey that listed the City’s PBB Programs, not including
those identified as legally mandated, grant-funded, self-sustaining, or internal services.
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INFORMATIONAL MEMO
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Participants were asked to select those programs they thought most important, those that
could be considered for elimination or reduction, and were also given the opportunity to share
feedback on open-ended questions about their priorities, opportunities for savings, and
anything else on their mind regarding the budget.
Survey Responses
The survey was made available in five languages and posted from September 25 to October 23.
It was advertised via all the City’s media channels and shared by Councilmembers via their
constituent networks. No requests for hard copies were made, although staff would have
facilitated this opportunity. Participation was excellent with 288 individuals responding. For
comparison, the City’s 2018 Strategic Plan online survey had 23 responses, and the City’s 2017-
2018 online survey had zero responses. The open-ended nature of some survey questions
made statistical data difficult to identify, but the priorities that emerged from the ranking
exercise were community policing, equity, fire department community outreach, human
services, park maintenance, police body cameras, school district partnerships, street
maintenance and teen and youth programming. The Council took these priorities, along with
public input shared via the virtual listening sessions and other avenues, as it deliberated the
Mayor’s proposed budget over the course of multiple work sessions and the public hearing.
Lessons Learned and Future Budget Surveys
Staff found this survey format to be an effective tool due to its alignment with Priority-Based
Budgeting and could be used but improved upon in future budget cycles if the City Council
agrees. Staff acknowledges that the timing of the survey was not ideal in 2020. Ideally, the
public engagement process would start earlier in the year so that public feedback would be
more integrated into staff’s development of the draft budget. This can be implemented in 2022
as the 2023-2024 budget is being drafted. In addition, the City’s programs identified in the PBB
process need to be revisited and further refined so that there is more consistency across how
departments defined them. The City’s new Enterprise Resource Planning system will help staff
and Council revisit the priorities in an effective way, and these priorities will in turn inform
future budget public outreach.
RECOMMENDATION
Staff is seeking Committee feedback on the recent budget outreach to help inform
improvements in the next cycle.
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