Billings Council Work Session Tonight

The Billings City Council meets this evening at 5:30 for a work session in council chambers at City Hall.  A pair of road projects and a look into how city officials prioritize programs are on the agenda.  The first presentation is on priority-based budgeting, a program the city uses to value each of the programs it funds based on evidence of the results each program produces.
The approach has allowed city officials to ask which programs are of the highest priority in terms of what is expected by the community; whether programs might lend themselves to public/private partnerships; who in the private sector is offering similar programs; and what is the city spending to achieve the expected results.  According to the Center for Priority Based Budgeting, the most spending in the 2012 budget — about $41 million — was on services rated of top importance.