I was not able to attend the public hearing for the 2022 City of Carmel budget. How can I still voice my opinion?
We completely understand and we know it can be difficult to decipher all of the budgets that are presented to the City Council during this very comprehensive and detailed process.
We completely understand and we know it can be difficult to decipher all of the budgets…
To review, City Council members met with individual city department heads in August in order to give them a chance to share their budgets and to explain why they were asking for what they needed for the upcoming year. Two members of the Council were assigned to each department and then they shared their feedback during the public hearing phase of the budget process.
The City Council met on September 16 and 17 to go over each separate department in a public session. At this time, each department head appeared before the Council and explained their budget request. You can watch those meetings here:
September 16 meeting
September 17 meeting
Then, on Monday, September 20, the City Council formally and officially introduced the budget ordinance and heard a comprehensive explanation from the Mayor. The Council also conducted a “public hearing” which gave any local residents the chance to be heard. A few spoke on issues that were important to them. You can watch that meeting here:
September 20 meeting
The next step is to conduct another public meeting in order to further discuss and deliberate the budget as a whole. Unlike many financial issues that are sent to the Council’s Finance Committee, the budget is considered so important that the Council will meet as a “Committee as a Whole” which means every Council member will be present and will have an equal vote on the approval of the budget.
The next meeting on the budget will be on Monday, October 4. The budget will be discussed and deliberated that night. Final passage may take place, or there may be reasons to delay final passage in order to come to agreement.
State law requires the final budget to be passed by Nov. 1 in order to be sent to Hamilton County and then to the State of Indiana’s Department of Local Government and Finance for final approval and adoption.
Although the public hearing process is over, you can still be heard. We would advise that you listen to the meetings that have already taken place, then if you have comments, e-mail them to the City Councilor who represents your district, one of the “at-large” members, or feel free to e-mail all of the members at one time. Here is the Council information page to help you with that.
Thanks for your interest in local government.
Authored by Laura Campbell, Sue Finkam, Kevin Rider, Jeff Worrell, Sue Finkam, Bruce Kimball, Miles Nelson, Anthony Green and Adam Aasen.