Panama City officials hold first Strategic Priorities Workshop
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) – Over the past few months, Panama City Clerk Jan Smith has warned commissioners about their spending habits. The reserve fund, also known as the city's savings account, is on track to be dangerously low by the end of this fiscal year.
Now they're searching for solutions and officials are turning to citizens for guidance.
Thursday night Panama City officials held their first-ever strategic priorities workshop. It provided residents with a new way to submit feedback. Suggestions from the workshop will be considered for next fiscal year's budget.
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'Ultimately, we're trying to create a citizens' living budgeting process, and that starts with events like today where department heads and citizens can interact together to both understand the services, they provide to the city but also understand the importance of the services that they provide,' Panama City Commissioner Josh Street said.
Officials say the workshop provides more transparency with residents. But it also shows areas where the city could cut spending.
'It's a matter of prioritizing where with that feedback where we want to focus the resources that we have you know, there are some services that we are required to provide. And, you know, people want us to continue to work to recover our city from Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Sally, as well as continuing to do the regular operations and day-to-day things that we have a duty to perform and provide this local government,' Panama City City Manager Jonathan Hayes said.
Residents were able to rank issues they wanted to see addressed.
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'Infrastructure is still top of mind awareness for people and so that's a lot of what the conversations have been about. But public safety is important. They want to see a well-funded PD, they want to see a well-funded fire department, they want to see better safety and security, and they want to see better parks. And so, all of these pieces come together and try to create a budget that ultimately our citizens can support and feel like they're getting a good value for the taxpayer dollars,' Street said.
If you missed Thursday night's event you can still provide feedback. There will be comment cards available for the next 10 days at city hall where you can write suggestions to help shape the city's spending.
Officials said they're working on establishing a budget workshop where commissioners will work on allocating funds with the feedback they received tonight. It's projected to be sometime next month but there is not a set date yet.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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