Amherst Ways & Means Adopts Contemporary Planning & Budgeting Framework

Since 1931, the role of Amherst’s Ways & Means Committee (W&M) has been “to examine and report on all appropriations and expenditures.”  This year, as municipalities face ongoing fiscal challenges and more complex fiscal tradeoffs, W&M is focusing on three activities:

1. Promoting an integrated planning and budgeting process;
2. Aiming for balance and equity in the funding of town departments;
3. Helping to inform Amherst citizens about financial issues and tradeoffs.

W&M believes an integrated planning and budgeting process helps citizens and town officials understand the past, envision a desired future, and manage the present to link the two together. Planning addresses where Amherst should be heading, and why.  Budgeting – a subset of planning – addresses the ways and means to get there.

Asking only budgeting questions can tie thinking too tightly to the past – fostering an “incrementalism” by which the town looks mostly at what it did last year as the basis for framing what it should do next year. That can squelch setting and achieving broader beneficial goals.   Framing only planning questions can foster a vision that is disconnected from the realities of the past and present. W&M believes it is important to pursue both approaches together.

Therefore, the committee’s framework for supporting FY2014 departmental planning and budgeting includes the following questions:

• What strategic goals (from the Amherst Master Plan) does each department plan to advance in FY2014?  How?  And with what means?
• What operational goals does each department plan to achieve in FY2014?  How?  And with what means? Sub-topics include:
  • Staffing: Do they have the right number, and the right mix, of personnel? Is their staffing and staff compensation commensurate with comparable towns?
  • Training:  What is required to maintain recommended levels of training and certification?
  • Equipment: What is the mix and status of their equipment? Where does the cost of maintenance outweigh the cost for new equipment? 
  • Facilities:  Do they have the right amount and type of space, and what maintenance issues are associated with their facilities?
  • Consumables:  What is the projected cost of fuel and other consumables? 
• What multi-year initiatives that have already been approved by the electorate will they advance or complete in FY2014?  How, and with what means?
• What unforeseen issues have arisen since their last planning/budgeting cycle that they will have to address in FY2014?  How, and with what means?
• What can they accomplish with a flat or reduced budget, and, what will Amherst citizens forgo as a result?

This line of inquiry, W&M believes, will provide a context for assessing and trading off proposed appropriations and expenditures. W&M will review individual departmental plans and budgets, and will also look across all the departments to assess how well each is positioned financially to effectively serve the citizens of Amherst.

In upcoming articles, W&M will share with Amherst citizens its progress and insights through this contemporary process geared to these complex times.

The Amherst Ways & Means Committee

Bob Brewster (chair), Mike Akillian, Jay Dinkel, Dick LeFebvre, Colleen Lynch, Maggie Paul, Russ Thomas, Paula Troie