City Budget
The City of Clinton’s budget allocates the city’s annual resources to provide essential services to our citizens based on strategic priorities identified by city leadership. The budget document is prepared by city staff, led by the city manager, and approved by your City Council.
The process of developing the annual budget begins each year in the fall when the City Council holds a planning workshop to identify priorities for the upcoming year and review accomplishments and challenges from the previous year. Senior city staff, comprised of key personnel and the city’s Department Directors, also hold a strategic planning workshop in the fall to prepare for the upcoming budget development.
Department Directors prepare capital item requests for review in December of each year and prepare their operating and maintenance budgets in late February. The Office of Finance, led by the Chief Finance Officer, reviews submissions and prepares revenue forecasts.
The City Manager completes the budget and presents it to council for review and discussion in a series of workshops, which are open to the public, held each March and April. The budget must be approved by City Council as an ordinance which requires two readings. The readings are held in May and June of each year. In addition to the readings and workshops, which are both open to the public, the public is invited to comment on the budget at a public hearing held prior to the second reading of the budget each June.
The City of Clinton has received awards from the Government Finance Officer’s Association for the past five years for the City Budget. The budget serves as a plan for how we allocate your resources, outlines the types of services we provide, and serves as a policy document that the city uses to guide and direct decision making at every level of local government.