Town of Chevy Chase Budget

Town Manager Todd Hoffman has posted a copy of the Town's budget narrative to the Town website at:

http://www.townofchevychase.org/assets/documents/pdfs/financials/09text.pdf

The document gives a line-by-line explanation for the budget. I found it very helpful. For each item, the narrative also states how much was budgeted and actually spent for FY08, and how much is proposed for FY09. One caution as you look through this and the actual budget is that the Town tends to take a conservative approach. Revenues are estimated on the low end and spending on the high end. Just because a budget item for FY09 is higher than spent for FY08 does not mean that spending will actually rise. It is quite common for the Town to spend less than budgeted.

The proposed FY09 budget itself can be found at:

http://www.townofchevychase.org/assets/documents/pdfs/financials/fy09budget.pdf

You'll see that budgeted (but not actual) revenues and expenditures balance. Town Clerk Andi Silverstone tells me that this is required by law. In reality, as you can see, we had healthy surpluses in FY07 and FY08. This money does not disappear but goes into the general fund and remains available to the Town.