City of Powell River’s finance committee was given an overview of the annual budget survey to assist the city in developing the 2022 to 2026 financial plan.
Chief financial officer Adam Langenmaier, at the January 27 finance committee meeting, said he was providing a wrap-up of the online engagement.
Langenmaier said the engagement ran from December 13, 2021, to January 16, 2022 and the data collection period was a bit shorter than the previous year.
“Last year, the number of responses really fell off and putting it up longer didn’t result in more responses,” said Langenmaier. “We had a reasonable turnout [this year]. The total completed submissions was 146. If we look at what that represents for our population, that’s one per cent. I don’t know how many people are engaged. I don’t know if we push that harder whether we can get it higher or not. The number is lower than prior years.”
Langenmaier said in prior years, the city paid for the budget engagement company to boost and try to push the numbers and the results didn’t seem like they were worth it.
He said he is okay with the input received this year. In addition to the submissions, 127 comments were left for city councillors and staff to consider.
In terms of the expenses that participants wanted increased, roads and transportation services topped the list, followed by transfers to reserves and transit services. In terms of expenses participants wanted decreased, fire services was the highest, followed by recreation services and police services.
Councillor Rob Southcott said he noticed about half of the respondents to the engagement were in the 30- to 49-year-old age range this year.
“This is interesting because I think in previous years, we’ve had more of the older demographic replying or participating,” said Southcott. “In my experience, I’m running into a lot of younger people who are becoming increasingly interested in the economics of our community.”
Southcott said he was wondering if there was a cost difference between the new public engagement provider and the previous one. He also asked if staff noticed a functionality difference between the two providers.
Langenmaier said regarding cost, it was very similar. He said the new system was much easier to work with, and the city has the engagement for the entire year, rather than a portion of it, which was the case with the previous provider.
“It will be nice to see how we can use this tool for continuing engagement,” said Langenmaier.
Mayor Dave Formosa said he thought the number of responses was good. He said the demographic change is a big deal. Formosa added that the new provider allows the city to keep that tool year-round.
“That’s a good asset,” said Formosa. “People are watching and they are engaged. And, they want their taxes lower.”
Finance committee chair George Doubt said he didn’t find any of the information in the engagement particularly surprising.
“It’s things we’ve generally heard from the public here and there,” said Doubt. “It’s a good tool, though. It’s a good way to get engagement from the public on a lot of different questions at the same time. It would be even better if we had 80 per cent of the public participating, letting us know what they think and providing comments.
“We probably all read through all of the comments. They are always interesting. It’s a good opportunity for the public to have some say in what we are doing here at the finance committee.”
