Finance committee reviews priorities memo; stakeholders press for clearer outcomes and fund accounting

The Finance Committee reviewed a draft priorities memo that compiles council members' ranked outcomes and ties them to long-range city plans as guiding principles. The Chair said the ranking comes from individual council spreadsheets that were compiled into a master list and asked for committee feedback before sending the memo to the full council.

Committee members raised concerns about presentation and utility: whether point values should be published, how to treat staff time that is split across priorities, and how to avoid creating an unwieldy budget book. One member suggested using memo boxes in the budget book to explain non‑budgetary goals. The Deputy Mayor and staff recommended inviting department heads to present specific fund use and program impacts rather than only numbers.

On revenue and transfers, members asked for clearer inputs showing revenue sources for each fund and visual diagrams of transfers. Controller Jeff McKim said he is building a box diagram to show transfers between funds and offered to produce more granular revenue explanations when requested.

Public commenters pressed for transparency and measurable outcomes. Greg Williams of the Chamber of Commerce urged the committee to show what the city obtains from housing expenditures and supported starting with targeted funds (including the housing fund) to demonstrate outcome-based reporting. During the meeting McKim said, "That housing fund is about $5,000,000," and offered to produce a report detailing how funds have been used.

Committee members proposed next steps including inviting HAND (Housing and Neighborhood Development) or department leaders to report on program performance and requesting a corrections log or change-tracking approach for AFR/ACFR updates. The Chair said she will refine the memo and present it to the full council next Wednesday.

The committee did not adopt the memo at this meeting; members asked staff to prepare clearer templates, examples of department-level presentations and a calendar with goals tied to the elected-salary workstream.