During their Tuesday evening regular session at the Municipal Building, Martinsville councilors will be briefed on their upcoming public retreat and several other dates relating to the 2025-2026 budget.
The public retreat, planned for Feb. 28 and March 1, is one of the first major budget-related events of the year. The retreat is an annual meeting between councilors, department heads, project officials and others.
“The Purpose of the tradition of a Council retreat is fostering open dialogue and vision setting,” reads information from the city. “Additionally, City Council retreats allow for deeper discussion of short-term and long-term city projects and their impact on future and current budgets.”
The planned retreat will be for two days with the option of scheduling additional days.
City staff will also brief councilors on the various milestone dates in the calendar for the 2025-2026 budget.
The budget calendar provides a list of deadlines for budget-related information.
“Included are important deadlines to submit information to the City Manager’s Office by municipal and state fiscal standards,” reads a portion of the city’s budget calendar.
What are the phases of creating and approving the budget?
The city separates the budgeting process into five parts:
- pre-planning
- planning
- proposal
- adoption, and
- execution.
The city is currently in the pre-planning phase for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
“Here is when the council engages in goal setting,” reads the budget calendar, adding that this is the time when the city manager kicks off discussions with citywide departments and other entities.
Planning, proposal and adoption make up a significant portion of the city’s budgetary process. These stages include departmental submissions to the city council, accounting and the council ultimately voting to approve following a public hearing.
The budget calendar defines the public hearing as the public weighing in after they have had access to a proposed budget.
“After the public hearing, the council adopts the budgets and any necessary revenue ordinances to balance them by June 30,” reads the budget calendar.
Execution comes after the board adopts the budget. July 1 marks the start of the fiscal year.
The budget calendar highlights
Jan. 24: The budget calendar kicks off the budget season.
Feb. 28 and March 1: City council’s public budget retreat.
May 8: The public hearing for the budget.
May 15: The budget gets its second reading and adoption.
