SASKATOON – The City of Saskatoon hopes to engage the community in upcoming budget deliberations by getting its input, according to their director of communications. A report detailing its “fall public engagement plan” was presented Monday to the executive committee.
It details the reasoning behind the development of an online tool that will allow residents to “play with the budget,” according to Carla Blumers, the author of the report.
City council will begin deliberating the budget in late November; however Blumers said officials will make efforts to inform residents of the tool before then. The city has also produced educational videos on the budget, to engage citizens.
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City officials said online budget consultation is a first for Saskatoon, but has been implemented in other parts of the country. Alberta’s provincial government has a website dedicated to its upcoming budget, while Lloydminster features a program that allows residents to allocate civic funds.
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“It’s been tried and tested so it certainly something that we thought that we would benefit from with the city of Saskatoon,” said Blumers, who added that Saskatoon’s tool will be similar to the one used by Lloydminster.
Saskatoon seems to be joining a trend that many municipalities are becoming a part of. Joe Garcea, a University of Saskatchewan political studies professor, said many local governments are going online when their goal is to engage the public.
“People are not as inclined I think to go to a community forum as they are to tune in or tap into some process where they can do it on their own time,” said Garcea.
“It’s an information exchange, its information from municipal governments to the people and from the people to the municipal governments,” he added.
In downtown Saskatoon Monday afternoon, Sneha Chakraborti helped a customer at Colours of India, a boutique store she owns. She said she plans to utilize the city’s new tool, when it eventually is unveiled.
“It affects us directly,” said Chakraborti of the upcoming city budget.
“We have to first participate and then see what these guys are up to.”
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