In the call by councilmembers and residents for clearer and more responsible budgeting, this budget season has been extremely stressful and at times very frustrating for those involved. Since last year, there have been calls for a balanced budget; that, together with the uncertain economic reality of a far different from a year or two ago, has made that belt-tightening felt.

The reality of balancing our budget has been muddied by late audits. The FY2023 audit was published just this April, well into the formulation of the FY26 budget. Normally, we would have had audited numbers through FY24 before formulating the budget. This makes our current status unclear before delving into a new budget year. In addition, I, as well as Councilmember Schaible, have asked for staff to create less of a margin of error between the budget to actuals (for example, in FY 2021, 2022, and 2023 we budgeted spending millions more than we actually did). While the staff went through to identify where these cost savings came from, many of these savings were not reflected in the initial draft of the FY2026 budget presented to some council members. The process to get to the first draft presented to the public took more time than initially planned so that the starting place was closer to the balanced budget requested.

However, the council has added back in some cut items due to calls from residents, hiring necessary staff, and the overall importance of paying our city staff a fair wage. This harried and hurried budget season has sometimes felt like one step forward and two steps back. The issue is, we still do not have a clear picture as to where the city has been able to save money in order to effectively budget for it in subsequent years. We know that some of it is from grants, which we cannot budget for if they are not in hand. Some of it is from delaying hiring, which we can budget for by freezing hiring–this is a double-edged sword, as that means that we cannot look for qualified candidates during the freeze. There is a long road ahead for the transparency and responsibility necessary for the kind of budgeting that residents want to see.

The audit committee appointments will be on the next agenda and I am looking forward to getting real recommendations coming forward to council to change the way we do business in Hyattsville that come from the bottom up.