SASKATOON – The City of Saskatoon is promising a more transparent budget process. That would include more input from citizens in the months leading up to the budget being presented to city councillors for debate.
“Planning the budget is more than reconciling a balance sheet; it’s about the process, and although the city’s process has been evolving and improving in the last five years, we’ve found it could be better around transparency, engagement and the technology we use,” said Kerry Tarasoff, the city’s chief financial officer.
“Most important is our proposal to open the doors of City Hall and ask our citizens for opinions on city projects and spending plans.”
City officials say budget planning will now be divided into five phases between March and December as the impact of population and economic growth is dealt with.
“To make sure the community continues to prosper and offer that same life quality, we need solid information to help us understand what it costs to run and grow Saskatoon now and for many years to come,” said City Manager Murray Totland.
That information includes capital investments, council priorities, performance targets, inflation and public input.
“What we’re proposing is a process for more balanced and accountable budget planning,” said Tarasoff.
“We want to make strides toward measuring successes, let people have their say about spending priorities and how to make wise investments for our future.”
READ MORE: Expect to pay more for Saskatoon civic services in 2015
Part of the changes in the budget process comes from a study done by Hemson Consulting. In part, the study looked at the impact of growth, infrastructure costs, growth outpacing revenue and rising property taxes.
“We’ve discovered that growth partially pays for growth, and that we also need to look at ways of adopting less reliance on property taxes as a primary revenue source,” said Totland.
“Right now development levies do a good job of paying for the development within neighbourhoods and Hemson’s work suggests that there might be an opportunity to consider other ways to fund growth for those larger city wide services without solely relying on the property tax.
A report on the renewed business plan and budget process will go before council on Monday.
Comments