At the April 9 and 11 Board of Supervisors meetings, Battlefield Supervisor Chris Yakabouski took time to advocate for some new approaches to how the budget is developed and presented to the population. The County receives Federal and State funding that are often required to be spent on specific County services. Additionally the County in some cases must provide matching funds. Mr. Yakabouski seems to envision a budget process that separates mandatory/restricted funding from discretionary/unrestricted funding to provide greater transparency to the population on the limited areas that the Board can appropriate funds as they desire. This process would allow the Board and the population to focus the limited budget time on items that involve new revenue and unallocated funding rather than deliberating on budget matters that the Board can’t really control. Below is one clip of Mr. Yakabouski taking about one aspect of this new approach from the April 11th meeting.
Click here to watch the video link.