Budget Builders,

Please note that the due date for the final Budget Narratives has been moved from April 3rd to April 9th. Since elements of the narratives will be impacted by budget decisions that are made after this week's meetings with the City Manager, we will be providing you with further direction and information regarding the narratives soon.

Thank you.

Chris Shoop

*CRITICAL BUDGET SCHEDULE INFORMATION*

Budget Builders,

Thank you for all your hard work and patience during the IFAS entry phase of the budget process. There were a lot of new challenges that had to be conquered and you all did great!

With the budget information now entered into the system, we want to communicate some important next steps for the period of March 12-31:

-March 12, 2009—Decision Package information is due. Please have all Decision Package requests entered into the database by the end of the day.
-- There have been questions about what to do with attachments associated with the Decision Package database submittal. We’ve set up a folder called “Attachments” in the Decision Package folder on the G-Drive for you to place any attachments you may have for your submittals. Please save the attachments with the Decision Package number and a reference to the attachment number (for example—DP-0049, Attachment 1 of 2).

-March, 12, 2009 5:00 pm (Thursday)—Department Budget Coordinators are to review budget reports with Department Heads and submit any significant changes to Roberta by this deadline.
--§ Please see Attachments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 distributed at the Sr. Staff meeting for samples of reports available for review.
--§ Finance is confirming labor numbers are correct, interfund transfers are booked properly, etc. Therefore, there may be changes between the report you review and the report submitted to the City Manager.

-March 13-15 (Friday-Sunday)—Finance Review Team will review budget submissions for material errors or problems.

-March 16, 2009 Morning (Monday)—Department Heads and Budget Coordinators will receive e-mails from the Finance Review Team regarding any potential issues or major variances with the IFAS entries. Coordinators need to be prepared to research identified issues or variances through out the morning and respond to Roberta by 2 pm as to the cause of the variance or advise if and what corrective action is necessary. Budget Coordinators and Department Heads will need to review items identified in the e-mail and determine if corrective action is necessary. Instructions will be provided on how to submit any needed corrections.

-March 16, 2009 5:00 pm (Monday)—We are asking all Departments to submit bullet points to Roberta outlining key budget changes by division. The purpose is to provide concise information about major budget changes or explain any adjustments that will help in the meeting with the City Manager. This should only address the budget numbers entered into IFAS and not include any information about Decision Packages submitted as the information for Decision Package requests will be included in the budget information reviewed with the City Manager.

-March 16, 2009 5:00 pm (Monday)—The City Manager’s Office will distribute the schedule for the City Manager/Department budget meetings.

-March 18, 2009 Night (Wednesday)—Electronic copies of Department budget sections will be e-mailed to Department Heads and Budget Coordinators.

-March 19th, 4:00 PM (Thursday)—Meeting with Department Heads and Budget Builders to discuss the departmental budget review meeting agenda. This meeting will cover:
Reports City Manager will receive
Discuss what Mike will be looking at (bottom line for divisions/departments)
Show examples of information that will need extra explanation
Answer questions

-March 19th and 20th (Thursday and Friday)—Finance Director and staff will be available to meet with individual departments as needed.

-March 20, 2009 After 3:00 pm (Friday)—Hard copy budget binders containing the information to be discussed in the Department/City Manager meetings will be available for pick up in Finance.

-March 23-27 (Monday thru Friday)—City Manager budget meetings with Department representatives.

-March 30 and 31st (Monday and Tuesday)—In addition to your scheduled meeting with the City Manager, please be prepared to respond to possible follow-up questions and requests on these days.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, as well as any ideas for improving communications as we move through the budget process.

Thank you,

Budget Team

IMPORTANT BUDGET UPDATE!

Thank you to everyone for all the hard work over the past few weeks!

As we enter the final stretch we wanted to share some important information with you. First, we have posted two new reports out on the budget entry tab for your use. We have made changes to the GL5007 report to reflect the level of review that will be conducted with Mike and broken out rev and expenditures to ease the use and limit confusion. These reports are being reviewed and tied out to the AS400 as we speak, so there may be small changes in the coming days, but they are materially correct. Two changes to the reports that are pending are the posting in Water and MDF accounts for capital items to get to a budgetary basis (adding back capital expenses and removing depreciation) and moving nonrecurring items from 2008 and nonrecurring budget from 2009. These changes should not impact your reviews, however, if you want to check nonrecurring items are all listed on the quarterly report that goes to council.

On Monday, we will be rolling the current budget entry from the 05 you are entering into to a finance version. Next week, finance will be reviewing all entries and working with departments to correct any glaring issues. All adjustments posted will be tied to the finance version so we can track them. After that review, we will roll the finance version to the City Manager version for Mike’s review with the departments. Any of Mike’s adjustments will reside in the City Manager version for tracking purposes.

Again we really appreciate everyone’s patience during this process, with new software, chart of accounts and numerous department changes over the past two years, this budget entry has been a challenge, but everyone has done a great job in preparing and entering so far!

Budget Team

Weekend Budget Contacts

Since there we no takers for the Budget Labs this weekend, we will not be holding them. However, since we know that some of you will be working on your budgets over the weekend, we want to let you know that Finance and the Budget Team will look to respond to any questions or problems over the weekend. The best way to communicate any questions or problems during this time is to send an e-mail to Jeremy, Roberta, Chris, and Desiree. We'll be monitoring e-mail throughout the weekend and will work to get back with you as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Budget Team

MUST READ! Important Budget Information

Budget Builders,

This message is to announce very important budget process changes:

1. The due date for information entered into IFAS is being moved from Friday, March 6th to Monday, March 9th at 12:00 pm. The expectation is that by noon on Monday, you will have entered, and adequately reviewed with your supervisors, all FY 08/09 projections and FY 09/10 and FY 10/11 operating budget entries into IFAS.

2. Additional Budget Labs will be offered. The lab schedule will be as follows:

• Friday 9:00 am-12:00 pm and 1:00 pm-5:00 pm
• Saturday 9:00 am-5:00 pm
• Sunday 9:00 am-5:00 pm

Because we will be scheduling staff to run the labs over the weekend, we are asking that you RSVP so that we can confirm that people will be attending during those days. Please contact Leslie Erickson (ext. 7845) to confirm your attendance at any of the above listed lab sessions. If you confirm attendance in a lab and your schedule later changes so that you will not attend, we request that you let Leslie know before 5:00 pm on Friday, or call Roberta at (530) 902-7780 if you need to cancel your attendance in any of the weekend labs. We don’t want to have any of the Finance staff or Budget Team come in for the labs over the weekend if nobody will actually be attending.

3. IFAS will be down on Saturday morning from 8:00-9:00 am for maintenance activities being conducted by the vendor. Please do not attempt to access IFAS during this timeframe.

4. Everyday between now and Monday, we ask that you log out of IFAS at 11:00 am, 3:00 pm, and 7:00 pm for 15 minutes each time so that we can run updates to reflect the latest information entered into the IFAS system. Updating the numbers this often will allow you to run reports that will reflect the most current information entered into the system. The updates occur more quickly when people are not logged into the system.

We want to thank you for all your patience and understanding as we’ve worked through issues with the new budget process and financial system. The feedback and information we have received from you has been very helpful to us for getting important pieces of the budget right. We’re hopeful that this small amount of additional time in the schedule will help you work through the final last minute issues that are coming up and at least reduce some of the time pressures you are all experiencing.

Please contact the Budget Team or Finance Liaisons with any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Budget Team

BUDGET LABS EXTENDED

Hello all!

IFAS Budget Labs have been extended. We will be hosting labs at the RLS at the following times:

• Thursday, March 5, 2009 - 9:00AM - 5:00PM
• Friday, March 6, 2009 - 9:00AM - 12:00PM

The labs will be first come, first served. You may call ahead (x 7466) to make sure there is room.

Thank you!
Budget Team

Important Dates to Remember

Just a reminder of the revised deadlines quickly approaching.....

• Friday, March 6, 2009 - Deadline for all entry into IFAS.
• Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - Summary Decision Packages Due
• Friday, March 20, 2009 - Draft Budget Narratives Due
• Week of March 23 - 27, 2009 - Budget Meetings with City Manager

Contact a member of the Budget Team with any questions on these items, and remember to check out the FAQ section of the Intranet as it will be updated often as questions arise.

Budget Calendar Clarification--Summary Decision Packages

Summary Decision Packages are due March 11th. There was conflicting information in the revised budget calendar that was attached to last week's e-mail announcing the updated budget schedule. The calendar showed Summary Decision Packages due both on March 6th and on March 11th. The correct due date is the March 11th date. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Thank you.

Budget Team

Budget Help--IFAS Entry

As you all know, Friday (March 6th) is the final day for budget request information to be entered into IFAS. Specifically, you must enter your 09/10 and 10/11 expenditure requests and revenue estimates, and 08/09 fiscal year end revenue and expenditure projections.

We understand the work involved in doing this and want to help you as much as we possibly can. We will be continuing budget labs beginning at 9:00 am on both Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at the RLS. During this time you may come and work on entering your budget information and seek assistance with any questions or concerns you may have. Leslie Erickson in Finance is keeping the budget lab schedule, so please check with her about the availability of lab slots during these days (ext. 7845).

In addition, as always please feel free to contact a Budget Team member or appropriate Finance Liaisons with any questions as we move forward in the budget process.

Thank you.

Budget Team

IMPORTANT BUDGET INFORMATION

Budget Builders,

This blog post contains very important information you will need to prepare your budgets. Please read carefully!

1. The Fleet Rental Rates have been calculated for FY 09/10 and 10/11 and can be accessed here: P:\Budget Process Information\2009-11\09-11 Equip Rates by Dept.xls.

2. In addition, there have been some revisions to the Short Term Lease Rates shown on page 30 of your budget manual. Please replace that table with the one below:

Pool vehicle type----------Description-----------------------------Hourly---- Daily------Weekly----Monthly
N/C-------------------FLEET FLEET COURTESY VEHICLE----------- No Charge-----------
P/U-F/S--------------PICKUP TRUCK - FULL SIZE---- 4.78-----38.27---- 191.33--- 765.31
SED-COMP HY-------SEDAN - COMPACT HYBRID----- 2.62---- 20.93--- 104.65--- 418.59
SEDAN-F/S-----------SEDAN - FULL SIZE--------------4.08---- 32.65--- 163.27--- 653.10
VAN-F/S PASS -------VAN - FULL SIZE PASSENGER---3.46---- 27.69----138.45--- 553.80
VAN-MINI PAS-------VAN - MINIVAN PASSENGER----4.04---- 32.33--- 161.65--- 646.58

3. For those of you who have property tax expense in your budgets, individual departments will be responsible for entering their own property tax expenditure budgets (objects 54601 and 53102). A good rule of thumb would be to increase the previous year expenditures by 2% plus an amount for any new acquisitions.

4. The Fund Balance Worksheet is located at P:\Budget Process Information\2009-11\Fund Balance Worksheet.xls. This worksheet contains 6/30/08 fund balance information for various funding sources often used in capital projects and maintenance of various districts that we thought might be helpful (no enterprise funds though). It is not yet a complete listing citywide, but what is here should be helpful to some of you.

On the worksheets, the first column indicates the fund's current budget information which includes all FY08-09 budgeted project costs/expenditures against the fund. In some instances, these costs also include the projected project costs in the “out” years of the Five-Year CIP (as presented in the FY07-09 Budget document). The second column is for your use if you wish. You may enter what you believe would be projected revenue and expenditures for this year and onward to come up with ending fund balance at the end of the upcoming two year budget cycle.


Thank you!
Budget Team

IFAS Technical Contacts

We’ve had some questions recently about who to contact with technical questions or problems related to IFAS. We want to clarify that the primary contact for any issues or questions that pertain directly to IFAS technical matters is Jeremy Craig (Finance Manager). Given his project implementation duties and schedule, it is easiest and most effective to reach Jeremy through e-mail rather than voicemail. He will either address your concern as soon as possible or pass on the information to someone who can help you. In the event Jeremy cannot be reached, Walt Browning from IT Division is also a great resource. The IT Help Desk is also available and able to assist with resolving IFAS technical issues.

We know that there are many challenges as we work through the new budget process and the new IFAS system. Because of this, we want to be as responsive and helpful as possible in assisting you with all this “newness”. So please do contact us with any questions, concerns, or problems.

Thank you.

IFAS Technical Update

This message is to provide you with a status report on the delay of the upload of actual numbers for FY 06-07, 07-08, and through 12/30/08 into the IFAS budget module. As you know, we have taken information out of the AS400 and converted it into the new chart of accounts to facilitate the upload.

One of the next to last steps requires using an IFAS program that takes an electronic file containing the AS400 data and uploads it into IFAS. As you know, we have had an issue with this process. The vendor has diagnosed the problem and developed a code fix that they have tested and assured us that it will work. We are on the waiting list for the developers at IFAS to take our server down and replace the faulty software code with the corrected code. As soon as this occurs, we will quickly upload our data and do quality control to verify its accuracy. Once completed, we will be ready for you to run the Budget Worksheet Report.

In the meantime, there is no impact on budget entry into IFAS for 2010 & 2011. As soon as the actuals are uploaded, we will send another notice.

We apologize for the delay. We understand that having the comparative numbers is crucial for your analysis and we are doing everything we can to get these numbers in and available for you. Thank you for your continued patience. Meanwhile, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email us at ifas@cityofnapa.org.

Financial Data in the IFAS system

The uploading of FY 2007, 2008, and 2009 to-date financial information into the IFAS system is wrapping up. This project has taken a little longer than expected due to the volume of accounts and the need for extra verification of some information. Finance has been working diligently to get these numbers in quickly, but also accurately. We expect the upload to be finished Monday, February 3rd. The information will then be tested, and barring any major issue with testing, Budget Builders can access the system starting Wednesday, February 5th to run the Budget Worksheet Report that will assist you with preparing your operating budget.

Budget Entry Labs

IFAS budget entry labs in the RLS--We have set a schedule for the budget entry labs that will be held at the RLS. The labs will be on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during the weeks of February 9th and February 23rd. Sessions will be held from 9:00-12:00 and 2:00-4:00 pm on these days. Finance staff will be on hand during these times to answer questions and assist with entering budget information into the IFAS system. To make sure we can assist people in an effective manner, we will limit each session to a maximum of 8 people and representation from no more than 3 departments at one time. Please contact Leslie Erickson in Finance to reserve a session space. Reservations will be made on a first-come first-served basis.

City of Napa Budget Building Blog Debuts

The process of building the City Budget for Fiscal Years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 is now underway. Putting the budget together is a big job that involves lots of people. This time around, the effort is led by out Budget Team of Desiree Brun, Roberta Meyer and Chris Shoop. (applause!!) If you want to know the latest from the Budget Team as they go about their work, check in on this blog that will track the work in progress and provide regular updates and answers to frequently asked questions. If you have a question, email Desiree, Roberta or Chris. Some of those Q&As will end up here on the blog.