What is a municipal budget?
Municipal Budgeting in Montana: Legal Requirements, Fiscal Planning, and Policy Implications
A municipal budget is a legally required plan of expenditures 7-6‐4001, MCA, that is balanced by anticipated revenues during the government’s fiscal year which, in Montana, runs from July 1 through June 30. The budget format and fund structure must conform to the requirements of the Montana Department of Administration’s Budgeting, Accounting and Reporting System (BARS). The BARS Chart of Accounts is administered by the Local Government Services section of the Statewide Accounting Bureau. By law, the required annual municipal budget
resolution must:
1. Be approved by the city/town council by the later of the first Thursday after the first Tuesday in September, or within 30 calendar days of receipt of the municipality’s taxable value from the
Department of Revenue;
2. Include a specific appropriation of public funds (the government’s annual spending authority);
3. Set the annual property tax mill levy that will be borne by the owners of all taxable property within the municipal jurisdiction.
Beyond its legal, financial management and accounting functions, a municipal budget also serves as historic documentation of the civic problems that confront a community and the city or town government’s plan to address those problems. Moreover, the budget probably reveals the governing body’s political compromises and agreed upon-goals for the future. Hence, the final adoption of the annual budget marks the culmination of the council’s policy‐making process and the beginning of the executive branch’s resource management process.
resolution must:
1. Be approved by the city/town council by the later of the first Thursday after the first Tuesday in September, or within 30 calendar days of receipt of the municipality’s taxable value from the
Department of Revenue;
2. Include a specific appropriation of public funds (the government’s annual spending authority);
3. Set the annual property tax mill levy that will be borne by the owners of all taxable property within the municipal jurisdiction.
Beyond its legal, financial management and accounting functions, a municipal budget also serves as historic documentation of the civic problems that confront a community and the city or town government’s plan to address those problems. Moreover, the budget probably reveals the governing body’s political compromises and agreed upon-goals for the future. Hence, the final adoption of the annual budget marks the culmination of the council’s policy‐making process and the beginning of the executive branch’s resource management process.