Take a Strategic Approach to Budgeting

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Online (Zoom)

Your budget should incorporate the strategic priorities of your library and be moving you along a sustainable path. How to you do your budget? Are you considering the impact of future needs and taxes, or is the budget focused on the coming year only? Does expedience take priority?

This webinar provides some space to think about budgeting and give you some ways to make the budgeting process more organized and effective. We'll introduce practices that make the budget a more useful tool.

A number of strategies are used for budgeting, and no one strategy fits all libraries, but certainly one will feel right for you! We'll also talk about how the budget connects to the B&A and levy, so that you can complete all three with greater ease. Hopefully, you'll leave this webinar feeling excited about the preparing for the coming year.

All ILA Noon Network webinars are free. The webinar recordings are available to ILA personal members shortly after the webinars. Registration for all live webinars is limited to Illinois libraries.

About the Speaker

James ("Jamie") Rachlin is the founder and President of Meristem Advisors, a municipal advisory firm registered with the SEC and MSRB. Through Meristem Advisors, Jamie provides Illinois municipalities with financial reviews, planning, capital planning, budgeting and revenue forecasting, as well as municipal advisory services for issuing bonds and borrowing.

He also helps clients with various special projects such as wage projections and staffing strategies, strategic positioning, district formation and trustee education. The hallmark of Meristem Advisors is clear, understandable, and actionable communication with clients and their governing boards from project start to finish.

Jamie is proud to serve on the Board of Openlands. He holds an M.B.A. in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S.E. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University and an A.B. in Computer Science from Brown University.

Take a Strategic Approach to Budgeting