FY 2013 Operating and Capital Budget - Metro Transit

The Budget Process and Stakeholder Interface
The Compact between the States of Missouri and Illinois
adopted in 1949 requires the Bi-State Development Agency of
the Missouri-Illinois Metropolitan District (Metro) to prepare
and adopt an annual budget. Such a budget must set forth
proposed expenditures to be undertaken during the budget year
for administration, operations, maintenance, debt service and
capital projects. In addition, the budget identifies the
anticipated income funding options for financing the proposed
expenditures. The transit system is required to present a
balanced budget where revenues equal expenses. The budget is a financial and
strategic plan for the upcoming year developed in accordance with Agency policies. It
seeks to optimize resources and maintain consistency with defined organizational
objectives and the Agency’s Strategic Plan.
The preparation and eventual approval of the annual operating and the tri-annual capital
budgets are both an internal and external process.
Operating Budget Internal Preparation
Each year the budget begins with a budget message to Agency cost center managers
imparting objectives for the upcoming budget year, including indications of the Agency’s
expected financial condition for the coming year and details of procedures to be followed
in preparation of the budget.
Agency cost center managers submit operating requests to the budget department using
an online application. Metro’s senior management reviews these preliminary operating
budgets and sets parameters for the coming year. Through a series of meetings, cost
center managers refine their preliminary operating budget requests per management’s
parameters, goals and
The Operating Budget Internal Process
objectives. Final
decisions are then
Board Policy
Management
Financial
and Direction
Input
Parameters
made by Metro’s
President and CEO to
Goals
allow the operating
and
Submission
Objectives
Internal Analysis
budget document to
Budget Prepared Preliminary
be prepared and
Operating Budget
by
Review Operating Budget
Process
Cost Center
Senior Mgmt Approval by Board presented to the
Managers
Review
of Commissioners
Board. The Board of
Strategic Plan
Final Decisions
Board Adoption
Commissioners’xx...x
approval completes
the internal process.
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