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City Budget
What is a city budget?
Brighton's budget provides detailed information about the City's estimated revenues and expenditures for the next year and serves as a work plan for the city and its departments, including a framework for setting priorities, strategic initiatives, and performance.
Each year, the City prepares a budget for the fiscal year beginning on January 1 and ending on December 31. The City Manager's Office is responsible for the budget preparation process and organizing the data submitted by each department. The budget is prepared using the requirements and guidelines of the City Charter, State budget law and the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). The primary purpose of the budget is to provide residents with a comprehensive overview of City services and operations and the resources that fund those services.
What do we fund?
The City's budget funds ongoing programs, daily operations, and key projects. The City Council, with input from the City Manager, establishes these priorities annually via a strategic planning session held in the spring. For more information on Council's priorities and the progress on this plan, visit our Strategic Plan dashboard.
Brighton's Budget Calendar
How is Brighton's budget developed?
The City of Brighton develops its budget on a two-year biennial schedule.
Two-year budgets help the City to focus on long-term strategy and positioning of resources. Rather than spending months crunching the same numbers and analyzing the same requests each year, staff are asked to plan ahead so they can spend more time implementing programs and projects than talking about them.
Although two year's of budget are presented to City Council during the first year of the biennial process, only one year is adopted by City Council at a time. This allows us to check-in on the second year of the biennial process to verify assumptions and adjust for changes as needed.
| Date | Task |
|---|---|
| April (Year One) | Budget process begins with base budgets by Department and fund |
| June (Year One) | Departments review base budgets and submit requests for the upcoming two years Public engagement at Brighton Summerfest |
| July (Year One) | Budget reviews with Departments Public engagement at Brighton City BBQ Revenue projections to determine financial capacity |
| August (Year One) | Proposed budget presented to City Council for next two fiscal years |
| September (Year One) | Revisions made to the proposed budget based on Council feedback |
| October (Year One) | Next fiscal year budget public hearing and adoption |
| June (Year Two) | Review of fiscal year two proposed budget Public engagement at Brighton Summerfest |
| July (Year Two) | Department budget check-ins Public engagement at Brighton City BBQ Revenue projections to determine financial capacity |
| August (Year Two) | Fiscal year two proposed budget presented to Council |
| September (Year Two) | Revisions made to the proposed budget based on Council feedback |
| October (Year Two) | Fiscal year two budget public hearing and adoption |
Budget Books
Each year, the City produces a budget book with information of that year's budget, including descriptions of each fund, Department, and strategic initiatives and performance metrics. You can view the past three year's of budget books below.
Previous budget documents available upon request. Please submit an open records request for past year's documents.
Fee Resolution
Each year, City Council approves a fee resolution of fees charged for City services. Please view the current fee resolution below.
Questions? Contact budget@brightonco.gov or call 303-655-2000