CITY MANAGER’S REPORT
Adopted 2006 Budget On-Line
The adopted 2006 Operating and Capital Improvement Budget has been posted on line at http://www.lawrenceks.org/Budget2006/adopted/ . Providing the community online access to the budget document allows the budget to:
1) Serve as a policy document - stating the entity’s short and long term, non-financial goals and objectives that address community concerns and issues along with the financial and other City policies used to create the budget.
2) Serve as a financial plan - summarizing and explaining the funding structure used by the City as well forecasting expected funding sources and budgeting expenditures, including capital expenditures, for a particular year.
3) Serve as an operations guide - including a narrative description of the assigned services, functions, and activities of the City’s departments and divisions, the goals and objectives of those departments and a measure of progress toward those goals.
4) Serve as a communications device - summarizing information, including an overview of significant budgetary issues, trends, and resource choices; showing the relationship between functional units, major funds, and non-major funds in the aggregate; explaining the process for preparing, reviewing, adopting, and amending the budget after adoption; explaining the effect, if any, of other planning processes (e.g., strategic plans, long-range financial plans, and capital improvement plans) upon the budget and the budget process.
Using pdf files, the postings are the same pages submitted to the GFOA for review for the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. In addition to individual pages of the budget document, the 2006 posting allows visitors to select one pdf file and download all 276 budget pages. Web Intern, Ben Turner posted the materials on line. A paper copy of the 2006 Budget is available at the reference desk of the Lawrence Public Library.
Traffic Calming Project Receives Award
The attached letter from the Kansas Chapter of the American Concrete Institute notifies Terese Gorman, City Engineer, that the Harvard Road Traffic Calming Project has won the 2005 Concrete Construction Award in the category of Municipal/Commercial Paving Projects.
MS Project Software
Specialty Planners within the Lawrence/Douglas County Planning Department are using MS Project Software to track several projects that have been completed or are currently underway. Projects include the HOP Rezoning, the Burroughs Creek Corridor Plan, tracking the development of an industrial database, and the update of Transportation 2025.
Action Items from 01-10-06
A report on the action items assigned to staff during the 01/10/06 City Commission meeting is attached, along with an update of previous action item assignments.