With budget season around the corner, the following are some strategies and changes you may want to consider.
Rethinking How You Budget
While line-item budgets for municipalities served their purpose for a long time, in 2022 the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), and the National League of Cities (NLC) came together to explore modernizing local government budgeting to be more responsive to community needs, reflect today’s technological capabilities, and better align with the way the world works via their Rethinking Budgeting Initiative.
At the heart of the initiative is the transition from line-item budgets to priority- and program-based budgeting.
Priority-based budgeting puts community needs and requirements at the forefront of the municipality budget planning process. This approach offers the added benefits of having a budget that serves as a strategic plan and decision-making tool to ensure a community’s top priorities – for example, having a safe community where residents, workers, and businesses can thrive – are resourced appropriately.
Program-based budgeting defines the programs and services a municipality provides in a manner that’s more understandable and useful to residents. For example, showing the budget for police patrols is a lot more meaningful to residents than embedding those costs into line items for salaries, benefits, contractual services, etc.
At a time when inflation is stretching residents’ and municipality budgets, while demands for services and mandates increase, taking a new approach to budgeting may help promote community understanding, trust, and support when you need it most.
Minimum Wage and Exempt Threshold Changes
Pivoting from the strategic to tactical, we just want to provide a friendly reminder that 2025 wage and pay-related-benefit budgets will need to reflect January 1, 2025:
- Minimum wage increase (of $.50/hour);
- Higher NYS DOL thresholds for administrative and executive employees exempt from overtime (increasing from $58,458.40 to $60,405.80 in upper New York and from $62,400 to $64,350 in NYC, Westchester, and Long Island); and
- Higher FLSA threshold (jumping from $43,888/year to $58,656/year) for professional employees exempt from overtime.
If during your budget or strategy development you need assistance, please know, RBT CPAs professionals are available to provide advisory, accounting, audit, and tax services, while our Visions Human Resources Services affiliate can help with all things people-related.
RBT CPAs is proud to say 100% of its work is prepared in America. Our company does not offshore work, so you always know who is handling your confidential financial data.