FAIRHOPE, Ala. — A special committee will present a list of top issues facing the city at the work session prior to Monday’s City Council meeting.

Members of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee have met with department heads and staff during the past few months to idenitify priorities facing each department.

Based on information obtained at those meetings, committee members developed lists of priority items facing each department.

The steering committee gathered those items into one list, which will be presented Monday with each member discussing the top issues facing each department.

“It’s not our job to solve the problems but to bring the issues in front of the council,” said John Gutknecht, the committee’s chairman. “It will be up to the council to determine which individual should be responsible for prioritizing that list and running with it.”

On Thursday, the committee discussed its plans for presenting this status report of its activities to the council.

“I have been impressed with what ordinary people can do working together on a project like this,” said committee member Diane Thomas. “I have looked at what some cities have done that hired expensive consultants to do strategic plans, and I don’t think they’ve come up with anything better than we have.”

The committee agreed that several priority items are shared by most departments, including the need for a new and integrated computer system, a vehicle and equipment replacement schedule and an improved personnel and payroll program.

“We still have a long way to go,” Gutknecht said, referring to the remaining work to be done by the committee this year. “The more citizens we can get involved in the process the better the strategic plan will be.”

The committee did not discuss Thursday what additional work it would do this year, but a document presented to the council last summer set out a general framework for the committee’s work.

The timeline described in that final report of the Strategic Planning Process Committee presented to the council in July 2008 was delayed because the steering committee members were not appointed on a recommended schedule.

However, the steering committee has met frequently during the past four months and largely caught back up with the original schedule.

“In March through May 2009, the mayor and key department heads, coached by members of the steering committee, create a three-year look-ahead plan,” the report recommended. “This plan draft goes to the treasurer by late May so that financial projections and cash requirements can be done.”

Public to have input

The July 2008 report also stated that the draft plan would be opened up for public discussion from July through September 2009.

“All citizens and public interest groups will be invited to public forums to critique the plan, offer suggestions, discuss priorities, and so forth,” the report stated. “The central point of the meetings is to gather input into the planning process at a point in time when the plan is still just a draft.”

Based on input from those public meetings, a revised draft plan is prepared by the mayor during October and November, the report recommended.

“At the first regularly scheduled council meeting in December 2009, the council conducts a public hearing on the three-year plan draft and financial projections,” the report recommended, adding that the plan would be revised based on that hearing. “A final revised draft is prepared by the mayor for presentation at the second regularly scheduled council meeting in January 2010. Approval of the plan including financial projections is accomplished by resolution.”

The July 2008 report stated that the same planning process would be repeated in each following year but with increasing emphasis on financial projections, and on departmental action plans to implement various parts of the plan.

The current Strategic Planning Steering Committee decided to focus its work on developing a strategic plan for city government activities and not for the city as a whole, given its limited resources and that the work would be done by volunteers without a hired consultant or budget for the first year’s project.

The July report also made some recommendations for future planning efforts:

“As soon as the fiscal year 2010/2011 cycle is completed, the steering committee convenes to create a plan for making the planning process more robust for future annual cycles, “the July 2008 report concluded. “Improvements to be made for future annual cycles would include: lengthening the planning horizon from three years to five; more emphasis on long-range community goals and lifestyle issues; more emphasis on city strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; more details in the strategic plan itself, and the respective action plans for implementation; more emphasis on cash flow planning; more emphasis on contingency planning should be basic assumptions about revenue, costs, growth, and so forth change significantly during the plan years; and more emphasis on making sure the annual budgeting process reflects the overlying elements of the strategic plan.”

After Monday’s work session, the council is expected to vote at its regular meeting on adding a 2 percent sales tax to generate revenue for the city. That proposal was debated at a recent public meeting at which a majority of the more than 30 speakers opposed the idea.

The tax has been proposed to address shortfalls in the city’s cash position and other financial problems facing the municipality.

Resident to recommend an audit

Monday’s council meeting agenda also includes an item during its public participation section by Dean Mosher, who is expected to recommend that the city seek an outside audit of financial records.

Mosher, a Fairhope artist and vice president of the Fairhope Single Tax Corp., lost to Mayor Tim Kant in a runoff for that position in October. During that mayoral campaign, Mosher frequently called attention to what he claimed were financial problems facing the city.

The council’s work session starts at 5 p.m., Monday, April 27, in council chambers, followed by its regular meeting at 6 p.m.