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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, February 08, 2010 Page 27 with Mr. Miller's observation that the process provided a true cost of services and programs being provided to the community. Councilmember Pust addressed negatives: suggesting that a new name, other than BFO, was required, since it was not a true "outcome" process as they were never built in or discussed; and it was not credible the process contained no outcomes, and just provided a spending outline. Councilmember Pust questioned how the end of the process was still reached with Councilmember Ihlan identifying ap- proximately $490,000 in spending that was described one way but not seen in the proposed budget for months, and not clearly identified in the list of 161 line items, but combined in those line items with the total not previously seen. Councilmem- ber Pust, depending on the answer to that question, opined that a better defined system was required, or the system renamed of called more accurately unless out- comes were included in the process. Councilmember Johnson suggested more structure, rather than ambiguous discus- sion points, was needed to be provided to focus the discussion and provide guid- ance. Councilmember Ihlan advised that most of her comments were negative points: her first concern that there was no adequate public input included in the process, with public meetings to set priorities, and that this had not been addressed from the initial stages of the process. Councilmember Ihlan opined that, if going for- ward with this process, that the first step would be to receive adequate public in- put to rank programs and services, opining that once the staff/City Council rank- ings were done, the process was difficult for the public to understand and not transparent. Councilmember Ihlan further opined that, once the final rankings were done, they had no actual impact on what was actually funded, but reranked unclearly. Councilmember Ihlan expressed that her main frustration was her need of line item type budget information to determine overall spending patterns for the City. In terms of providing construction input for spending decisions, Council- member Ihlan opined that she was unable to do that, and that the process, from a policy-maker standpoint before the public, was not transparent. While not the City Council's intention, Councilmember Ihlan based this on comments she'd heard from citizens watching City Council meetings. Councilmember Roe opined that the only consideration should be, no matter the process used, is how easy is it to understand the budget process at the end. Coun- cilmember Roe opined that the City Council never did itself any favors when they look like they don't know what's going on. Councilmember Roe opined that the City Council needed to know more about things early in the process in order to make good decisions. Councilmember Roe suggested, as noted by Councilmem- ber Ihlan's request for a line item approach that items for a function or list be bro- ken down (i.e., how much labor, overtime, capital expenditures, etc.) to determine priorities or rankings, and what portion of the function represents the most expen-