As Martinsville enters the final stretch of its annual budgeting process, an audit is giving residents the power to grade how the city is doing.
Every year, in the months prior to July 1, localities across Virginia work out their departmental budgets for the coming year. While most try to make the process transparent, with public hearings and publicly available budget documents, Martinsville is taking it a step further.
“As our city manager and staff have taken the initiative to improve our budget process and ultimately present a budget that is easier for citizens to understand, the information provided from this study will let us know what they’d like to see,” said city spokesperson Kendall Davis.
Joshua Blubaugh, who’s conducting the audit, described it as a chance for Martinsville to shake up its routine and break from habits.
“The city is at an important moment in time,” said Blubaugh, a senior studying public affairs at the University of Texas at Dallas. “We have senior leaders that have been here for a while, we also have new staff, too. With all these new staff changes, it’s an opportunity to think about what we have done and what we can improve on.”
Blubaugh’s work with Martinsville is a for-credit school assignment, but he said takes cues from past budget work he has done, such as for the city of Duncanville, Texas, where he said he helped develop the budget calendar and collect data.
Blubaugh also has connections to Martinsville. As recently as December he worked as a part-time management fellow for the city, a role in which he supervised internal communications and crafted memos and reports, among other tasks. He learned of the position from City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, who had been the city manager in Duncanville before moving to Martinsville last year.
It was during his time working for Martinsville that he suggested the study.
“This was something that was discussed by the city manager and council,” Blubaugh said. “It went from an idea to action.”
He believes cities like Martinsville can do more to make their budgets meaningful to residents, and one way is to present them in a way that the general public can better comprehend and use.
“There could be a gap in which [residents] are not accessing the information or it’s very confusing,” Blubaugh said, adding that potential solutions range from changing the budget layout to making budgets available via social media. “It can even be tutorials or videos explaining the process so the public can understand it better.”
Blubaugh’s audit will grade Martinsville’s budgeting process on three criteria: efficiency, effectiveness and transparency.
“On the overall broader picture, transparency is understanding why decisions are made the way that they are,” Blubaugh said. “Efficiency is ensuring the budget process goes smoothly, from planning to execution and effectiveness is making sure the budget executes on the goals of the community and our elected leaders.”
Blubaugh is kicking off the audit by gathering community feedback via an online portal that gauges how the public feels about the budgeting process as it exists now.
The 15-minute survey touches on topics ranging from the participant’s knowledge of how to contribute to the level of details in the city’s budget reports. The survey period ends April 5.
“Once that is done, I will analyze the data that comes in,” Blubaugh said, adding that a report and recommendations will follow.
Blubaugh said he hopes that his findings will be enough to convince the city to enact a number of changes in the fiscal years to come.
This is his first time performing a study of this kind; he said it could become a blueprint for investigations into the budgeting process of other communities.
“When we think about budgets, it’s not the most entertaining topic but it’s still such an important part,” Blubaugh said. “It’s the central policy doctrine that guides all of our actions. It is such an important piece, not just for government employees, but for residents.”