City of Meridian Financial Transparency and Accessibility Portal
Explore the City from a financial perspective…
Executive Summary
The City of Meridian (City) was incorporated in 1903 and provides its citizens with a full suite of public services ranging from: public safety, water utilities, community development, and parks and recreation to name a few.
The City manages the full suite of public services utilizing numerous revenue sources to maintain an annual balanced budget as mandated by the State of Idaho while delivering a high level of customer service.
The City Council has the responsibility of approving the annual budget.
(Click here for more information on "Who makes City finance decisions")
Financial Philosophy and Debt Management
The City embraces a financial philosophy of saving for our needs before ("save before you spend") we need them and to live within our means. Our financial policies are developed to respect the overall drive to keep tax rates and fees to lowest possible levels for our citizens and customers all the while providing the highest level of service to our customers. To achieve this goal, the City develops a 10 year Comprehensive Financial Plan (CFP) to establish both a short-term and long-term guide for capital, operating, and personnel expenditures. The CFP includes a list of capital, operating, and personnel requests that the City and its community envisions for the future. It is a plan that integrates timing of expenditures with the City’s annual budget and the City Strategic Plan. The CFP identifies future needs that will benefit the City and its community. The CFP also indicates the priorities assigned to each request and presents a target construction/implementation schedule.
Along with staying true to keeping tax rates and fees at the lowest possible levels, the City supports the financial management concept that growth pays for itself by collecting revenues from Assessment/Impact fees from new development in the City. These assessment/impact fees allow the City to utilize the revenues to acquire additional resources necessary to support the additional impacts created by the new development.
An additional financial management approach that the City practices is to keep tax rates and fees to the lowest levels possible is with debt management. Currently the City has zero debt on its books thus eliminating the extra debt interest expense to City tax payers. The City has no plans to add debt to its books over the next 10 years as defined during the development of the annual CFP. As mentioned above about growth paying for itself, the City collects the necessary revenues from new development to pay for the necessary costs associated to supporting the resources for the additional impacts. This finance approach keeps the tax payer's portion relevant to the services they are receiving and requiring growth to pay its fair share.
Please find below interactive financial reports displaying the City's current expenses along with the status of the current fiscal year budget.
Programs and Services Summary
The City of Meridian, ID (City) is determined to create long-term stability by evaluating how resources are used, and how those uses align with the priorities of our community. In 2018, the City implemented Priority Based Budgeting, an approach to budgeting that assesses the desired results of a community against the programs the government is currently offering and how impactful those programs are in achieving the desired outcomes.
Unlike the traditional incremental approach to government budgeting, where the current years budget becomes the basis for the next years spending plan, PBB allows communities, such as ours, to understand their core values and then budget according to these values. The underlying principles of the PBB framework is to question past patterns of spending and instead to prioritize resources to achieve long-term strategic goals of the community. PBB also lets us know the true cost of providing services and enhances transparency and accountability within the budgeting process.
Disclaimer
The City of Meridian financial data is made available on this website expressly subject to the following terms and conditions:
- The information provided on this website is the latest data available, but it should not be construed as a complete and accurate description, whether legal or otherwise.
- The City of Meridian makes no warranty whatsoever, whether expressed or implied, with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the data or its fitness for any particular purpose.
- In consideration for access to this data, the website visitor releases the City of Meridian, its officers, departments, authorities, agencies and employees from any and all claims and liabilities.
- The City of Meridian will not be liable for any damages that may arise from the use of any information made available on this website.
The City’s standard Terms of Use apply to all use of this website. You can download them here.