How does your budget reflect your values?

How does your budget reflect your values?

Beyond an expression of symbolic words, what do values actually look like in practice?

Let's begin with a definition to anchor what cultural values are. I believe cultural values are the shared standards of behavior that guide how we make decisions within and for the organization, how we interact with one another, and how we execute our work—consistently reinforced through leadership actions and systems.

In my experience, values are most powerful when they are clearly defined and consistently reinforced. In a previous role, we anchored our culture around four core values—the “4 I’s”: Integrity, Inclusiveness, Inspiration, and Innovation.

These weren’t just words; they became a shared lens for how we made decisions, how we engaged with one another, and how we approached our work.

The question—and the challenge—is whether those values show up when it matters most. The budget process is one of the clearest places to find that answer.

A values-driven budget process starts with how the work is done.

It begins with empowerment and accountability. Are we asking departments to bring forward recommendations and solutions—not just needs? Are those recommendations tied to the broader mission and outcomes? Are we creating opportunities for elected officials to engage meaningfully in the work? Are we informing and explaining how we got here in a way that is constructive?

Shared Standards of Behavior

Let’s break that down by isolating a key element of the budget process: the budget workshop and the public hearing. Even the format of the budget process can reflect our values. There is a natural tension between analog and digital engagement.

Analog budget workshops can be more agile. We treat them like any other public meeting—advertised with time, place, and manner—but they are not broadcast. These meetings often produce stronger dialogue. Officials and staff may feel more comfortable asking questions without cameras on. That’s not a transparency failure—it’s human. It should be understood as a process tradeoff, not necessarily a deficiency on its face.

Digital, televised workshops serve a different purpose. They create a platform to inform, to tell the story, and to connect with the community. They allow us to get on the record about priorities, constraints, and the structural realities of local government in Michigan—realities that often compress what communities are able to do.

A Shift in Perspective

Early in my career, I preferred the analog approach.

I believed it led to better dialogue, clearer direction, and more effective prioritization. Public comment in that setting sometimes felt like it disrupted the working conversation between staff and elected officials. Often, the attending public included regular meeting participants, frequent commenters, or highly engaged social media voices with established perspectives.

In that environment, interpretation of the dialogue varied widely. Elected officials had their interests. The public had theirs. Staff needed direction while also justifying recommendations and clarifying decision points.

While this approach may feel more agile on the front end, it can lead to more fragmented outcomes and missed opportunities to align understanding.

Over time, I was pushed—reluctantly—toward a more "transparent", televised process.

And I came to see the value of providing detail on a public video record.

The workshop became more than a working session—it became an opportunity to zoom out. A chance to provide regional and macroeconomic context and to demonstrate something we all know but often overlook: no city operates in a vacuum.

While it is natural for residents to compare budgets across communities, those comparisons are often apples to oranges.

Each community’s property tax base—the foundation of local government revenue in Michigan—is different. Legacy pension and OPEB obligations vary widely. Exurban communities incorporated in the 1970s and 80s often face far fewer legacy--people and infrastructure costs than those established in the early 20th century. Population/demographic growth or decline patterns are not uniform.

These very-material differences shape what is possible—and they should shape how we define and apply our values.

A televised process allowed me to frame that reality upfront. To tell the budget story in a way that connected policy, economics, and community expectations.

It required more work on the front end of the budget process—but that work paid dividends. It became source material for future budget and capital plan presentations to build on, for lobbying requests with state officials and agencies, for grant applications, and most notably for community task force materials, and a local civic education program. It strengthened conversations with residents, peer communities, and even state policymakers.

Values Come with a Cost

Values are not authentic if they don’t cost you something; our values are foundational.

How systems are designed, processes and policy implemented, how our workforce talent is recruited, developed, and retained.

We are talking Policy, People, and Performance...this SHOULD take more energy, it should push capacity, and it likely may elevate stressors in the beginning.

But, for those costs we produce a better product – we can speak with clarity and confidence about recommendations from staff, we can test our recommendations for alignment—and alter decisions if our alignment is off kilter with our values.

• Values, when applied well, create freedom through constraints. 

The Moment We’re In

Right now, many Michigan local governments are in the final stretch of their budget process—six to eight weeks from adoption. And the pressures are real.

• Fuel costs are rising and it will impact motorpool/fleet operating budgets.  

• Federal grant revenues are uncertain or disappearing altogether which may impact the ability to deliver pipeline projects.  

• Public safety and government workforce applicant pool pipelines remain diminished – placing substantial upward pressure on labor costs. Inflation persists.

• Global instability continues to ripple through supply chains and are compounding unit costs which no doubt hamper efforts to construct affordable housing and redevelop and retool our downtowns and aging commercial corridors.  

  • And that matters- because our commercial and industrial tax bases help to offset tax revenue pressure on the residential tax base overtime.  
    

• Uncapped property taxes create friction in generational housing turnover, with limited political will to address the issue at the state level.

• The State’s unfunded mandate to replace private lead service lines places significant financial pressure on many local utilities—leaving local officials with the difficult reality of adding water rate increases to the list of rising everyday costs impacting residents.

  • For many post–World War II communities, this compounds affordability challenges and makes it harder to attract the population growth needed to strengthen their tax base. 

  • And that matters—because population directly influences state and federal revenue sharing/grant formulas.

    
    

An Opportunity

This is exactly why values matter—not as organizational virtue signaling, but as decision-making tools.

As I’ve tried to illustrate, there is enormous context behind every line item in a municipal budget. And within that complexity is an opportunity:

• To produce a more civic-oriented budget

• To tell a clearer story

• To align resources with priorities in a way that builds trust

As my priority-based budgeting colleagues often say, this approach helps communities determine what to keep—not just what to cut. It shifts the mindset from divestment to intentional investment.

Because in the end, the budget is not just a financial document.

If culture is how an organization behaves, then the budget—along with our recruitment and retention decisions—is where those behaviors become real.