The Austin City Council begins budget talks today after hearing a financial forecast for the city two weeks ago. This morning, the council will discuss budget presentations by city departments.
For the first time, those presentations are available for everyone to watch on the city’s YouTube channel. The city also included a video describing how revenue from taxes and utilities equate to city services.
As KUT previously reported:
The 20 videos – together, longer than any one individual Lord of the Rings movies (bonus features not included) – are part of a broader effort to engage citizens in the budgeting process and allow them to give feedback. “We’ve worked hard to try to take the mystery out of how a city, this city, goes about putting together the city’s financial plan for any given year,” City Manager Marc Ott said.
The budget process is still in the beginning phases. The council won’t act to adopt the Fiscal Year 2014 budget until September.
