Continuous process improvement and the budget process: GFOA is helping a large city government synchronize its disparate financial planning initiatives in a seamless process that will serve as a model for other governments. (Solutions).

The GFOA's Research and Consulting Center has been charged with the task of encouraging the use of the National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting's recommended budget practices. We plan to pursue this goal through our annual conference, publications, training, and select consulting projects.

The consulting projects GFOA undertakes provide concrete solutions for the clients with whom we are working, and permit us to disseminate the findings more broadly through Government Finance Review and other publications. Recently, a large city government engaged GFOA to conduct an operational review of its budget function using the NACSLB practices as a guide. This article presents our approach, findings, and general recommendations, which may be useful to other governments that are considering taking the same steps. Since our work is not complete, the name of the client has been intentionally withheld.

One of the hallmarks of a good organization is periodic self-evaluation leading to continuous improvements. Following a comprehensive review of all administrative services that resulted in administrative cost savings of approximately 10 percent, the government recognized that there was some dissatisfaction with the city budget process among key internal stakeholders. The City Council, the central budget office, and the agencies alike were frustrated by the role confusion, inefficiency, and disconnect between budgeting and other management processes.

Intent on fixing these problems so that the budget process consumed fewer resources and better served the needs of the various stakeholders, the city soon organized an advisory group for this express purpose. This group, which had the full support of the City Council and the chief administrative officer, included key staff from both administrative services--including senior finance and budget managers--and the operating departments.

In October 2002, the city engaged GFOA's Research and Consulting Center to analyze its budget process and identify opportunities for improvement. Specifically, the city wanted GFOA to examine the existing process and structure, analyze the roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders, and evaluate the use of technology in budget development and document production.

GFOA embraced the project, since it represented an opportunity to apply its expertise in support of the association's mission, while furthering our research efforts in this important area of public finance. The GFOA project team used a methodology that included document review, surveys, and interviews. After gaining an understanding of the city's organizational structure and budget process, GFOA developed surveys for each of the different stakeholder groups in order to get a sense of the issues that needed to be explored in more depth.

In December 2002, the GFOA project team traveled to the city to learn first hand how the city's budget process works and to obtain feedback from all of the stakeholder groups. After meeting with the chief administrative officer, budget officer, and advisory group to further define the goals of the project and a future vision for the budget process, the project team spent two days meeting with stakeholders, including City Council staff, analysts in the central budget office, and financial staff from all city bureaus.