By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
With municipal budget planning season about to go into full swing, Whitewater officials have set in motion a timeline, spread across the next two months, for the city’s 2018 operating plan.
The series of steps includes plans of giving a newly convened group, the Finance Committee, an opportunity to flex its muscle for the first time. The Common Council approved its creation earlier this year.
Finance Director Steve Hatton discussed his budget planning proposal at a Common Council meeting Sept. 5.
While the city has long adopted a process of planning out various aspects of the municipal budget over a nearly two-month window in the fall, Hatton in his plan laid out how this year’s process will be tweaked with the Finance Committee in the fold.
“Departments will present to the Finance Committee at scheduled meetings, with a published agenda that will enable interested parties to attend,” Hatton wrote in a memo.
City Manager Cameron Clapper is slated to offer up a big-picture unveil of the 2018 budget at an upcoming Common Council meeting on Oct. 3.
From there, the more granular deep dive into specifics will begin within the Finance Committee.
The new city panel will meet Oct. 12 and delve into revenues, debt service, capital projects, administration, public works and police.
A week later, on Oct. 19, the committee will hash over details in funds specially designated for the library, neighborhood services department, parks and recreation, the trio of utilities (water, wastewater and storm water) and fire and rescue.
The intensive review is expected to wrap Oct. 26, when the committee takes up budgets within the community development department, Whitewater Innovation Center, tax-incremental financing (TIF) districts and any other unfinished matters.
The committee’s recommendations will go before the full Common Council on Nov. 7, and elected officials are slated to act on the document Nov. 21, following a public hearing.
