The Dallas Morning News reported that the City Council is using the Budgeting For Outcomes (BFO) approach to focus less on money more on long-term goals and strategies for reaching them.
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The article, entitled, City Charts New Way to Set Goals, appeared on Wednesday January 19th, 2006, and is available free via the web, for registered users.
City Manager Suhm first considered after reading David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson's book The Price of Government.
The article explains that the new budgeting for outcomes approach will drastically depart from the historical process in which council members craft annual budgets from “the bottom up, starting with programs funded in the previous year and considering the additional needs of individual departments.”
According the article, “city departments will design new programs or tweak existing ones to meet the council's desired results. Council members will prioritize each program and allocate funds in the budgeting process until they've reached their price cap. And all of their work – including long-term results, short-term strategies and available resources – will come together to form a strategic plan”
Instead of asking "How many cops should we have?" Ms. Suhm said, the council will be asking "How do we make Dallas safer?" And just because a program is in the budget this year doesn't mean it will make the cut next year, she said.
To learn more about the BFO approach, click here.
Any questions regarding the Dallas BFO engagement should be directed to Steve Struthers.
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