MIDLOTHIAN—City leaders are starting early to establish their budget numbers for a smooth new fiscal year, which will begin October 1, 2024.
The Midlothian City Council met this past Tuesday for a workshop to review and discuss the proposed 2024 to 2029 Strategic Plan and new fiscal year budget to provide necessary direction to staff.
All City Council members were in attendance to take part in the workshop as Midlothian City Manager Chris Dick reviewed the strategic planning process for the City Council members. The workshop also allowed council members to ask questions about the draft strategic plan.
Overall, the draft strategic plan reflects not only the city’s upcoming staffing needs but also important expenditures in the next five years.
No action was taken at the meeting, but Midlothian Mayor Justin Coffman said, “The goal of the meeting was to present a high-level view of the city departmental needs to the council, getting feedback in order to aid the city manager in setting priorities for the series of budget workshops this summer.”
As a reminder, the overarching goal of the strategic planning process is to ensure a plan is in place to meet the future needs of Midlothian citizens.
“It is the first step in ensuring that the annual operating budget addresses key City Council issues and priorities,” Dick explained. “To this end, Council was asked to provide feedback about how they would like to approach setting the property tax rate, a target for the fund balance, their expectations for issuing debt, and what priorities they wanted to see reflected in the budget for the coming year.”
Councilmembers were invited to continue to provide feedback directly to the City Manager to reach a consensus on priorities and be sure they are represented in the plan. There will likely be another workshop before the strategic plan is presented at a Council meeting for approval, but the workshop has not yet been scheduled.
Mayor Coffman concluded the meeting by thanking the Council for their thoughtful input and said he looks forward to the smooth budget process.
The Budget workshops are set to begin in the middle of the summer.
While the current proposed Midlothian strategic plan is not yet available to the public, it will be when it is submitted to the council for approval.
“The strategic plan is simply a guiding document that helps the council understand some of the needs by department and helps the city manager hear priorities from the council as he develops the budget that will be presented,” Coffman concluded.
