- Home
- Departments
- Financial Services
- Budget
- Priority Based Budgeting
Priority Based Budgeting
Priority Based Budgeting (PBB) is a unique approach to the budgeting process that aligns resources with priorities identified by City Council in their Strategic Plan.
Rowlett’s Strategic Plan was most recently adopted in 2018 and is created upon a foundation of 7 Strategic Priorities as determined from resident feedback and input.
PBB assists our Council by providing the insight necessary to reallocate resources, funnel those resources towards the challenges of tomorrow, and achieve long-term fiscal wellness.
Fiscal Year 2022 marks the second year of PBB implementation. The program was acquired in FY2020, and departments immediately went to work reviewing their business processes and defining programs. These programs were then scored on alignment with Rowlett’s 7 Strategic Priorities by the individual departments. These scores were reviewed by functional area peers and then the budget committee performed a final review. Any reviews that resulted in a quartile shift were then addressed with the respective departments until a consensus score was obtained.
The FY2021 budget was the first that allowed Rowlett policymakers to view budget decisions in light of the impact they would have on specific strategic priorities and to see how great of an impact each program has on those priorities.
Following adoption of the FY2021 budget, a PBB Steering Committee was formed with representatives from each department with the goals of incorporating key program performance metrics into the process, defining the customers for each program, and creating a tool that could provide a quick snapshot of each program’s performance while serving as the cover page for all decision packages or requests for additional budget resources.
The results of that effort can be found at the link below and include a ranked list of each program, an explanation of the quartile scoring system, and our Rowlett original PBB Program Request forms. There is one for each City program, containing key program data and providing a more transparent account of how the city’s resources are allocated each year. We are excited to see what the future holds for Rowlett and how Priority Based Budgeting will help us achieve those goals!