How Minneapolis Prepares for the Future with Strategic Budgeting

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The city of Minneapolis partnered with OpenGov be better prepared for the future with strategic budgeting. With a $1.57 billion budget, the city needs accurate forecasting and future planning. OpenGov’s Budgeting & Planning suite not only helps with forecasting and planning, but also performance management, workforce planning, and reporting.

Video Transcript:

Amelia Cruver, Budget Director: “When folks from outside the city are looking at the decision we’ve made in the last couple years and our outlook, two things they are looking for are, 1) “how are you going to manage the federal stimulus?” and 2) “how are you projecting your revenues?”

Using OpenGov, we’re able to make a detailed 5-year projection for our revenues and pair that with a 5-year projection for costs. Using that information allows us to not only look at the year we’re budgeting for, but a 5 year window and make really smart decisions with our budget.

Using this budget not only for the annual budget that we are formerly appropriating, but for all of the years in our forecast gives us a much more accurate forecast and a much better understanding of the story of our budget.

Much of my career since going to grad school has been in public finance, and I’ve just really found that when working in public policy, when you get down to the budgets, that’s where the rubber really hits the road.

For each program that we have at the city, we make sure departments are including not only information about what they’re doing, what kind of services they’re providing, but also, how it’s impacting racial equity in the city of Minneapolis and how it connects to the city’s strategic plan around racial equity.

Our departments are looking at data to see, “is that data disaggregated by race?” and “are we really doing the best we can to take a look at how will new investments impact marginalized groups in the city?”

The control that we have over it as non-communications professionals, to be able to say we have an important story to tell about our community development department or our civil rights department.

We are following our own financial policies. We are keeping our reserves where they need to be. And we are managing in a holistic way, making sure that our city is prepared for the future.”