(KAIR)--Officials with the city of Atchison are taking the needed steps to start preparing a budget for 2016.

City Finance Director Becky Anderson says the whole budget process is a long one, and is just getting started “with workshops and public hearings to discuss what we are going to do with the upcoming year. On May 4th, we are having our first workshop with the City Commission for the year, and it's our City Commission goal planning workshop. So basically it gives staff an opportunity to sit down with the City Commission and find out what their priorities are for the coming year; what kind of initiatives they want to undertake...what they want to do with taxes. In recent years, it has been hold the line on property taxes and we have been able to do that, and I anticipate the same thing with this Commission.”

Once goals are set, Anderson says city officials will gather additional information needed to draft a budget. She says “our next workshop is our partnerships and CIP and ERP...equipment reserve plan workshop...no action is taken at that workshop, but it gives the City Commission an opportunity to hear what requests there are from other organizations for funds; and it gives them an opportunity to look at a very, very preliminary capital improvement plan.”

Anderson encourages residents with an interest in the city budget to get involved during the process, saying that “the public hearing is just before adoption of the budget, so really people need to get involved before then. Obviously that's an opportunity for them to come and speak, but if there is something that you would like to see our city doing or something you don't want to see them doing, contact City Commissioners, contact city staff...get involved now while we are building that budget.”

Anderson says the Atchison city budget has to be presented by August 1st, and adopted by August 15th.