Priorities | Performance | Investments
In 2014, the Olympia City Council adopted a new and ambitious Comprehensive Plan with a vision for how our City will grow and develop over the next 20 years. Each year, we take intentional steps to achieve that vision through strategic planning, performance management, and continuous learning.
This framework is an annual Priorities, Performance, and Investment (PPI) cycle.
It includes three main phases:
- Learning.
- Engaging.
- Investing.
Included in the updated Comprehensive Plan was language that called for a new kind of plan—a strategy to implement the Comprehensive Plan goals. In response, the Council accepted in 2016 the City’s first Action Plan.
The Action Plan includes desired outcomes, strategies, actions, and community indicators to help us track how we are doing in achieving the Comprehensive Plan goals and policies, and is organized into five focus areas: Community, Safety & Health, Downtown, Economy, Environment, and Neighborhoods.
Budget Differently
Having a clear path forward for accomplishing our community’s vision means we can budget differently—moving away from competing for dollars and towards investing in those areas that matter most to our citizens.
Show Me the Revenue
To understand where the money goes, first we need to understand where it comes from. The City collects revenue from a wide variety of sources; however, about 68% of that revenue is required to be spent on specific services. The remainder of the revenue collected goes into a general fund. While what’s budgeted for in the general fund doesn’t change a lot year-to-year, there is more flexibility for determining how that money should be used.
Investments
The budget is more than just a document that lays out how City revenue will be spent each year. The foundation for everything we do at the City is our community vision, and our annually adopted budget is the most important way in which we demonstrate how our citizen’s priorities and our actual performance drive how we invest citizen’s tax dollars to achieve that vision.