FAIRHOPE, Ala. - EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first article in a series on the city’s budget process for FY 2012.

During 10 hours next Monday and Tuesday, city department heads will present their financial plans to a committee that began work in May on a budget the City Council is expected to approve by Oct. 1, when the 2012 fiscal year begins.

This will be the third consecutive year the council has appointed a committee to lead a budget process, which has included meetings each year where city managers make the case for their department’s financial needs.

The city’s budget committee consists of Stan Grubin (chairman), Mayor Tim Kant, Council President Lonnie Mixon, Chuck Zunk and Gail Gardner.

Five top city staff persons are also tasked with developing financial information during the process, including the city administrator, treasurer, clerk, general superintendent and finance director.

“I think the process as it exists now is more open,” Councilman Dan Stankoski said Thursday, comparing the current budget process to how it worked prior to the city elections of 2008. “Instead of the council getting the budget 30 days before it was due, we now can see it unfolding for six months during a budget cycle. And we have more time to see exactly what kind of budget we are getting.”

Since the committee’s first meeting May 12, city managers have presented their department’s capital needs and draft budgets to the budget committee and staff, leading up to the meetings next week.

An additional five-hour meeting is scheduled for Friday, July 29, for the committee and staff to revise the departmental budgets heard earlier in the week.

“The process has been very rewarding,” said Grubin, who has been involved with the new budget process since the beginning. “Department heads and their leaders are much better informed of their results, impacts and accountabilities. Before the present system was employed, there were several instances where leaders neither had a working familiarity with their budget numbers or an acceptance that they were fully accountable.”

According to the Alabama League of Municipalities, the typical procedure is for the mayor to prepare the draft budget and present it to the council in time for consideration and adoption prior to Oct. 1.

Kant has criticized the current process in Fairhope as infringing on the executive power of his office, as well as delegating some aspects of the work to a committee with members who are not elected council members.

“The ultimate decision-maker over finances is the council, and they can’t delegate that to a committee they’re not all part of,” Kant said Thursday. “I believe the council and not a committee has the responsibility to work and prepare these budgets. I get real nervous when there’s just one or two council members deciding everything.”

The mayor also disagreed with statements that past budget procedures did not include adequate input from department heads or was sufficiently transparent.

“In the past the mayor prepared the budget and he did get input from department heads,” Stankoski said. “But as far as delegating authority to the budget committee, it is only making recommendations. On top of that, the mayor is a member of that committee, and he can have as much input as he wishes.”

The city’s budget committee meets from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on July 25, 26 and 29 in the Delchamps Room at the Fairhope Municipal Complex.