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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, February 08, 2010 Page 28 sive part and how that will impact the City Council's discussion and decision- making, allowing the body to know ahead of time where to make adjustments. Councilmember Roe noted that this process calls for the City Council to look se- riously at where we want our levy to be when we set a preliminary levy in Sep- tember; and to set it approximately where the final levy should be to support the level of spending on government preferred by taxpayers. Councilmember Roe suggested that by using this discipline, rather than setting the levy high, then at- tempting to lower it, it would serve a better process. Councilmember Pust noted that this process, as rolled out this year, did not pro- vide information sufficient for the Council to take any different action in the process, specific to the preliminary levy setting, given timing issues. Council- member Pust opined that it was imperative, if this process is continued, that out- come measurements are provided by staff and available to the City Council in April. Councilmember Pust concurred with Councilmember Roe's observation that the not-to-exceed levy was the biggest part of the decision, made with little or no information; and even though told repeatedly that the outcome information would be available by September, it was not available. Councilmember Pust rec- ognized that the process would take a lot of work, but noted that the spending part was quantified last year, and if going toward outcome-based, that information was needed by the City Council in May to allow the public to receive the information in June and July, and anot-to-exceed budget presented in September. Council- member Pust suggested that staff focus exclusively on that part of the process immediately to accomplish that earlier schedule. Councilmember Johnson concurred with comments; however, opined that it will take more than another year to accomplish this, and suggested that three years was a more realistic goal to have a working mechanism in place, especially in the pub- lic involvement portions. Councilmember Johnson supported moving forward with the BFO process for the 2011 budget year. Councilmember Roe concurred that it may take some time to get the outcome process in place. Councilmember Pust concurred that the outcome portion could be accomplished, even though other governments had attempted it (i.e., State of MN); but asked that the City not "pretend" that the process was outcome based at this point in the process. Mayor Klausing opined that the City Council needed more self-discipline in using the process; and that in setting the categories versus line item budgeting as a City Council, spending and outcome levels needed to be determined, rather than done as line items at the eleventh hour.