Follow The Money: A Budget Conversation

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On Monday, October 11th at 6pm in the Civic Building we are having a ‘Budget Conversation’ with a staff from Montgomery County’s Office of Management and Budget.

{We hope you'll stay for the regular monthly Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board meeting that will follow immediately after the Budget Conversation.}

This conversation is intended much more for folks that are not necessarily intensely engaged in our civic infrastructure and want to learn more about the basics of the process. (Nonetheless, “old timers” may also find it useful as a ‘refresher’ – all are welcome!)

This will be the type of conversation that is best attended with someone else you know - you'll want to make sure you talk about it afterwards! So bring a friend, family member, or that young person that is intrigued by our civic process.

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Budgeting for our personal, business, or public purposes sometimes can seem daunting. To some of us, life has never been the same since the dawn of spreadsheets – we live by them! They make our capacity to layout and understand budgets a near science – though we know budgeting remains an art… To other of us, even the thought of dealing with budgets makes us shiver… Most of us are somewhere in the middle.

In Montgomery County, budgeting is essentially a year round process with a clear beginning and end. “The 12-month period to account for revenues and expenditures in Montgomery County commences on July 1 of each year and ends on June 30 of the following year.” Simple enough, right? Well, lots of things happen in-between… For a graphic display of the process, go to page 12 and 14 of the document “Operating Budget Process”, found at:
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/omb/FY11/psprec/pdf/psp-process.pdf

After you glance at the chart, you may want to go back to page 1 and read the document carefully… It includes a wealth of useful information regarding how the process works; it has numbers galore; and it even explains some of the terminology that sometimes makes a glaze go over our eyes.

Details of the budget itself can be readily found at:
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/ombtmpl.asp?url=/content/omb/fy11/psprec/index.asp

A recent update on the Status of the Budget submitted by the County Executive to the Council is at:
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/ombtmpl.asp?url=/content/omb/fy11/psprec/index.asp

Viewing these documents can answer many of the questions anyone might have about our County’s budget process… But, there’s nothing like having the opportunity to talk through some of the intricacies and details to better understand the process and some of its nuances…

If you would like to join us in such a conversation, please come by the Civic Building OCTOBER 11 at 6pm. We’ll have with us a staff from the Office of Management and Budget to lead us on this conversation. (Remember that the conversation is meant to be for those that are new to the process; but, all are welcome.)

Note that the Budget Conversation is immediately prior to the monthly meeting of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board, which begins promptly at 7pm. We hope you’ll stay for that as well.

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