The public comment period is first, and it is the only part most people ever see. You get ninety seconds. If you are the 47th speaker, you get ninety seconds starting at 10:40 p.m.
Then comes the quiet part: the line-by-line review. This is where a stray comma can mean the difference between a library staying open and a library closing, because in municipal code, a comma is often all that separates "may fund" from "shall fund."
The committee chair reads from a script. The script is the budget. Nobody reads it aloud, but everyone who votes has read it, which is more than most of us can say for our own tax returns.
Watch for the amendments. That is where the real budget gets written — in the margins, between the public hearing and the final gavel.