Editorial: Organization is beneficial for budget workshop

At this stage, there’s not much to analyze about the city of Puyallup’s pre-budget workshop last week. That’s partly because a new council is trying to synchronize its collective watches with a new city administrator and a new finance director. But, it’s also because a slow economy pushing city revenues down is unlikely to yield new spending initiatives.

That said, and despite the disappointing turnout of only one Puyallup resident, it seems the council’s pre-budget workshop succeeded in getting everyone on the same page.

That success might surprise some, considering this is the first budget workshop for recently-appointed City Manager Gary McLean and his recently-hired new finance director, Cliff Craig. Add to that a switch to biennial budgets and you had the potential for lots of miscommunication. But there was none.

Councilmember George Dill said, “Everything went swimmingly.”

The workshop was initially scheduled to span two days, giving council sufficient time to discuss budget items. In the past, it has certainly taken that long.

This year, though, the council gathered at 8 a.m., worked through lunch and wrapped everything up late that same afternoon. Council considered splitting the workshop into two half days but didn’t want to ruin their momentum with a break.

Several veteran council members said it was the smoothest pre-budget session they have ever experienced. They credit the new additions of McLean and Craig for the success of the whole process.

At previous workshops, a great deal of time was spent philosophizing about different options for the city’s future. McLean is showing a more grounded approach than his predecessor, a fact reinforced by his choice of Craig — a finance director with much more focus.

In that vein, Craig presented the council with a multiple-choice-style preliminary budget, giving the council a few options to pick from for every topic. The preparation and organization helped streamline the whole process.

McLean is expected to return to the council in September with a finished budget and at that point the council, and the public, can provide more feedback on whether a smoother process has produced a better budget.