UPDATE: Without any advance notice, today’s Citizen Budget Workshop was canceled.

No city official appeared at the workshop, according to Brew reader Mike McGuire, who went to the meeting and found no one present. A security guard in the building said he had no record of the event.

This is the second time the mayor’s budget workshop has been postponed and/or canceled this year.

It’s that time again: Citizen Budget Workshop time!

This year’s exercise in budget balancing will be taking place Saturday in a compelling location – the old American Brewery building which is now home to the non-profit group, Humanim.

The workshop will begin, as always, with a short presentation about the 2014 budget and a Q&A about the City’s fiscal situation. Participants will then be able to prepare their own budget recommendations, i.e., “Cut X!”  “Beef up Y!” or “Please never again spend one cent of my tax dollars on anything as ridiculous as Z!”

Mayor in New Orleans

Although Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake typically appears at this event, she won’t be at this one. Her schedule lists her as being in Louisiana tomorrow, along with Governor Martin O’Malley and Gretna, La., Mayor Ronnie Harris and residents of the city.

They will be “celebrating the close ties between Baltimore and Gretna,” a suburb of New Orleans, where the city sent 150 police, fire, emergency and public works employees to assist in the clean-up after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Rawlings-Blake is then expected to attend Sunday’s Super Bowl game in New Orleans between the Ravens and the 49ers.

The budget workshop runs from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, at 1701 North Gay Street. Here are links to the 2013 budget documents you’ll be discussing.

For help with special language access for limited English-speaking persons or other special accommodations, participants are asked to call Theresa Hall at 410-396-4735.