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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, October 12, 2009 Page 20 gaps and inflationary needs. Councilmember Ihlan opined that staff was aware of where the pressures existed, information not known to individual Councilmem- bers, and that it was necessary for the City Council to defer to staff for their day- to-day management and administration to identify where the trade-offs exist and what funding needs there are. Councilmember Ihlan further opined that abstract rankings won't be meaningful without that information; and that astaff-proposed budget was crucial. Councilmember Ihlan expressed frustration and puzzlement in a lack of concurrence from her colleagues related to this matter. Acting Mayor Roe opined that he anticipated that this would be part of the discus- sion on November 9; and further opined that it was unfair to staff to ask them to put together a budget without Council priorities, when the whole purpose of the BFO exercise was to provide direction and ranking priorities. Acting Mayor Roe noted that it was conflicting to support the previous approach, or this approach and ask staff to duplicate their efforts. Councilmember Ihlan reiterated her frustration with this process, and past practice in staff providing spreadsheets at a department level for staff's perceived needs; opining that this proposed process was not efficient as it related to one of the most important functions of the City in determining fees and taxes. Councilmember Ih- lan opined that, while it may be fine to complete the prioritization exercise, she was unclear why a proposed budget could not be available before mid-November. Acting Mayor Roe, with all due respect to Councilmember Ihlan, reviewed the purpose of the BFO process in identifying as a community what the preferences and priorities were; and the subsequent focus of resources accordingly. Acting Mayor Roe noted that the same process used repeatedly in the last years did not provide for sustainability over the years. Acting Mayor Roe indicated that, once individual Councilmembers had done their initial ranking independent of dollar amounts, staff would then provide the additional budget figures requested by Councilmember Ihlan, representing the next phase of the BFO process. Acting Mayor Roe opined that this process would ultimately be more valuable to the City Council as decision-makers rather than the current crystal ball best guesses by staff. Councilmember Pust asked Mr. Miller, if the information based on the 2009 budget, was readily available, perhaps it could be provided earlier to allow those needing to process information in a different manner to have access to the num- bers earlier in the process. Councilmember Pust sought, without overburdening staff, to have sufficient information as it related to employee health care costs and potential COLA increases included as part of the decision-making at this time, rather than later. Mr. Miller advised that the 2009 numbers were included on the matrix (Attach- ment A) in the packet, but that the 2010 numbers were not yet available, with