City of Powell River’s finance department has put in a pitch for use of Citizen Budget for a fourth year to help the city with the budgetary process.
At the finance committee meeting on Tuesday, October 22, acting manager of accounting services Ryan Youngman said the city was coming up on another budgeting cycle and the finance department was planning on using Citizen Budget to encourage community engagement and public input into the budget decision-making process.
“The city has implemented Citizen Budget the past three years and it has been an effective tool to receive valuable input from residents,” said Youngman. “Some of the benefits associated with Citizen Budget includes collecting feedback from residents to determine satisfaction with current service levels, and better information to support decisions for the prioritization of resources and financial forecasting. It’s a great communication tool and provides perspective into the difficult decisions council faces.”
In terms of numbers, last year there 636 visitors to the Citizen Budget website, which was down from 958 in 2018, and 130 responses were submitted, down from 154 the year before. These decreases were due to the survey being available for 40 fewer days in 2018, compared to the 2019 budget, according to Youngman.
The civic election in October 2018 pushed back the budgeting process, he said. Even though there was a decrease in visits to the survey and responses submitted, there was a huge increase in the number of comments provided, which nearly doubled, from 244 to 467.
“With your approval, we are anticipating a go-live in November and we’ll have it up and running until February,” said Youngman. “After that, a report will be compiled, which will be distributed to mayor and council, and subsequently to the public.”
Finance committee chair councillor George Doubt said he was happy to see this coming and he was sure residents would be chomping at the bit to provide input on what they’d like to see done with their taxes this coming year.
The matter will go to city council for consideration.
According to a report from Youngman, Citizen Budget has been used during the budgeting cycle for the three years previous to the 2020 budget year. Consistent with prior years, the balanced budget module will be used, which challenges participants to develop and balance their version of the city’s budget.
If the participant increases the budget of a specific department, they will need to decrease the same amount from other departments to balance the budget.
