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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,April 22, 2013 Page 14 little bit for the operational portion of the budget. However, Councilmember McGehee noted the need to keep the CIP portion on track and make sure it is add- ed to the budget base, including inflation. From her perspective, Councilmember McGehee opined that the goal of a good budgeting process is to map out how and when that point would be achieved. From his perspective, Acting Mayor Willmus opined that past actions needed to remain in the past, and this City Council, here and now, needed to move forward; recognize how existing resources are allocated and how they should be allocated going forward. Acting Mayor Willmus stated that he was not intending to say certain areas needed to be slashed or other areas of the budget bolstered;just that he needed to understand how they were currently allocated before making major decisions moving forward. Acting Mayor Willmus offered an opportunity for those Department representa- tives in attendance to provide their input at this time. Those present included Parks & Recreation Director Brokke, City Engineer Bloom, and Police Lt. Rosand. Mr. Brokke responded that some levels of service were easier to analyze than oth- ers (e.g. pathway maintenance for snow and ice). Mr. Brokke noted that the cur- rent level of service often didn't meet the community's expectations. However, he noted that only two (2) pathway machines were available to maintain side- walks, and to increase that level of service from the current two (2) routes, it would require more machines and more people; with the City currently providing a middle-of-the-road level of service. With youth programming, Mr. Brokke not- ed it was difficult for him to offer less than a high quality program; and from his perspective, everything was ranked as a high priority, even though recognizing the need to look at different levels of service. Since Mayor Roe and City Manager Malinen were missing from tonight's discus- sion, Acting Mayor Willmus suggested that it may be beneficial to hold over this discussion to the next meeting when a full City Council and staff contingent were available to continue discussions. Councilmember McGehee opined that it may be worthwhile to let Mr. Miller bring forward a budget based on these rankings, while allowing further discussion when those real figures and preliminary budget documents were available. Councilmember Laliberte opined that she was ready to move on from the priority rankings; and questioned whether delaying the discussion would change those rankings at all, given the detailed discussion held at last week's meeting by the full contingent. Councilmember Laliberte stated that she was at the point where she needed have those contractually mandated, debt service items, and new and/or unavoidable 2014 costs compared to 2013 fully identified. Councilmember