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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, April 22,2013 Page 13 those needs change as new Councilmembers come on board. Mr. Miller noted that some programs or services could lend themselves to the process (e.g. street improvement index), while other areas were more challenging and you either pro- vided that service or program or you didn't do so. Mr. Miller stated that another challenge was to decipher what is important to the City Council and what isn't, thus staff's provision of the list of programs, with past Councilmembers sharing with the staff management team what they saw as important. Mr. Miller advised that staff wanted to get it right and have the City Council make budgetary deci- sions on outcomes. Mr. Miller noted that, unfortunately, those were not present in years past due to last minute timing issues. Acting Mayor Willmus noted his struggles with various types of budgets; whether to simply cut every budget by a certain percentage across the board versus a more beneficial or reflective budget based on overall community needs and desires. However, Acting Mayor Willmus noted the challenges he found in drawing a line between ranked programs based on individual rankings without sufficient back- ground on each service or program. Councilmember Laliberte suggested that the adoption of a calendar so early in the budget process may create part of that problem and cause the service level discus- sion to be lost, since as soon as priorities were adopted, that opportunity for dis- cussion was gone and you moved on to the next check mark in the process. Councilmember Laliberte suggested continuing discussions on the programs and services and how they interact prior to adopting budget priorities to avoid that problem. Councilmember McGehee opined that the level of service was a good topic and one the City Council should have. When she considered the total budget, Coun- cilmember McGehee stated that the level of service and programs offered ap- peared to be what residents wanted, or what they believed they wanted. Coun- cilmember McGehee opined that this should be evident through periodic commu- nity services as residents offered their opinions on those services and those they would consider reducing or eliminating to reduce their financial impact. As the City worked toward its own sustainability over the last few years and developed the CIP piece, Councilmember McGehee noted the significant increase in taxes and fees, as well as the added financial commitment with the fire station recon- struction and park renewal program efforts. However, Councilmember McGehee noted that there remained a significant increase yet to come to become fully sus- tainable. Councilmember McGehee cautioned any further rationale that would ar- tificially project those infrastructure needs and amount needed to catch up, to avoid huge impacts needed to correct that picture, such as those now being real- ized. Councilmember McGehee noted that that continued sustainability and maintenance of the City's assets and infrastructure had yet to be fully addressed. From an operational standpoint, Councilmember McGehee stated that service lev- els could be reduced ending up in the final analysis as arbitrary and reduce taxes a