B etter budget information at your fingertips. The chance to dig into department finances with city staff. "Open mike" nights with City Council members about the upcoming budget.
All of this before city budget decisions get made with no room for changes.
City budget mania? Not exactly. But it's all good.
The Mayor's Office announced it will hold the first of six budget workshops Thursday night designed to put residents face-to-face with various budget issues confronting the mayor's staff.
In addition, City Council will hold separate public forums to gain input on budget priorities and how the city should spend taxpayer money. And the Mayor's Office last week introduced a new Web site intended to help demystify the city's budget process.
The changes are a major improvement from a process that traditionally started too late and pushed back too much of the public's input until after the big budget decisions had been made.
That old way of doing the public's business could always have been improved. But it would be a major public disservice now.
Hard choices ahead
Needs and costs are rising, and revenues are declining. Tough budget decisions must be made.
The city is facing somewhere between $40 million to $60 million in cuts or revenue increases to balance next year's budget effective Oct. 1.
The sooner city officials can get started on the next round - and the more the public can be engaged on the front end - the better.
The workshops will allow residents to sign up for evening or Saturday morning sessions with the mayor, City Council President Richard Clark and various city staff.
Residents will select what parts of city operations they want to inspect. City staff will be on hand.
Jacksonville Community Council Inc. will compile the comments for city officials to consider as they get into the details of the budget starting in July.
For residents who just want more of a chance to speak out on broader budget issues, City Council will hold its own "open mike night" forums on the budget soon.
New Web features
Meanwhile, city residents can get a better understanding of how city finances work through the new myjaxbudget.com Web site, which city officials stress will be a work in progress.
It offers insights on the steps to creating the annual budget, discovering how major departments operate and spend money and pinpointing the source of the city's revenues.
In the months ahead, officials said, you'll be able to see how the city is meeting various performance measures. You will be able to look up city vendors to see how much they are being paid to provide goods and services to the city.
Mayoral spokeswoman Misty Skipper said city staff looked at local government Web sites throughout the country in fashioning a more informative site for Jacksonville residents. It's long overdue.
In another positive budget move, the City Council last year formalized an earlier budget process by requiring the mayor to give the council a preliminary budget by May 1. The mayor will still deliver his completed budget proposal to the council in July as usual.
We commend the mayor and council for creating a more taxpayer-friendly budget process.
Now it's up to taxpayers to get friendlier with it.