Annually each Fund’s budget provides the details of the budgets for the Departments within the Fund. Within each Department is one or more Functions which the department performs usually providing some service to the public.

The approach here is to find the best way of doing the function, document it, then determine real cost of each Function in providing the service.

I recommend the use of a high level Lean Team to study all cross-functional process flows. The main objective of the Lean team is to find the best way of doing the service or the function and to document the process flow on a spread sheet. Where this works best is in studying the document flow of an application through the city office processes.

A time study analyst may also be used to time-study a Function’s processes. This process works best for repeated Functions such as mowing a public park. The time study analyst will determine the best method for doing the work and will determine the correct allowed time for each process. From this data the correct staffing can be determined and ultimately the correct budget for the Function.

Functional Lean Teams are also organized one for each function and meet once a week. These are the employees who actually do the work in performing the function. The main goal is in finding the best way to do each of the processes of the Function. The Lean team would depict both the detailed processes for the current method and the improved method of performing the Function on a flow chart. The best way I have found for doing this is to tape up white butcher paper around the walls of a conference room. The processes to be shown on the butcher paper are created on separate small pieces of paper and are taped to the butcher paper allowing the processes to be easily repositioned without permanently damaging the butcher paper. When a meeting is over the butcher paper can be easily rolled up and take away. A flow chart on the wall has an advantage over that in a book when it is presented to the city administrator and the city council by the Lean Team.

The most important part of the flow chart is in getting each process between (15) minutes and (60) minutes in time length detailed enough for team members to more easily determine the best method. The flow chart is then turned over to the budgeting department and to be used in estimating the time for the function to produce an item or document or a service. Note that this method though not as exact as the Time-Study analyst method can be just as valid for staffing purposes in determining whether another person should be added or removed from the payroll. As in the high level Lean Team a Funding Formula can be developed for each function and used in developing the budget.

The Lean Team method costs less to implement and is generally better accepted by employees because they are empowered to solve their own work related problems.

I recommend the budgeting of Functions rather than Departments which gives greater control of the budget to the city administrator. I also recommend that a budget analyst review each of the Lean Teams’ process flows and estimate the hours and other costs incurred in doing the function and document the data on a spread sheet. I call this the Funding Formula for the function. The budget is determined multiplying the number of expected times that the function is to be done during the budget period by the Funding Formula. Note that once defined a Funding Formula can be used, with minor tweaking for cost of living increases, for budgeting until its processes change which may be for several years.