The Board of Supervisors has formally engaged in the County’s strategic planning efforts since 2001. The County’s strategic plan helps to link many inputs, including the Comprehensive Plan and other significant drivers, to ultimately determine resource allocation. To focus on this strategic work, the Board has typically held annual one-day retreats in the summer/fall to provide clear direction to staff on its strategic priorities. This year, however, we’re taking a slightly different approach.

The County's adopted FY17 Operating and Capital Budget initiated the development of a priority-driven budgeting process, including Board work sessions and community engagement, to determine Board and community priorities in a constrained economic environment. This priority-driven budgeting process involves identifying priority services and necessary funding levels to support those services, and then aligning resources and desired services in a sustainable way for the future. The process will result in a balanced Two-Year Fiscal Plan that will provide a framework for decision-making on major financial issues.

This spring the Board began this critical process with strategic initiatives identification and priority-setting work sessions. Throughout the summer the public

had the opportunity to provide feedback about the prioritization work the Board had done so far. At the same time, staff worked to refine the identified priority initiatives into clarified objectives that will form the basis of the County's FY 17 - 19 Strategic Plan. These clarified objectives along with the community feedback we received were introduced to the Board on September 14 for a preliminary overview and discussion. The Board will continue with more in-depth discussions of the draft objectives and resource allocation issues at the work sessions scheduled for September 29 and October 11. The Board's feedback and direction will shape the development of the balanced Two-Year Fiscal Plan that will be presented in November.

Check out the roadmap below to see what the past and future milestones in our priority-driven budgeting process look like: