How would you spend the municipal budget?
That’s the question the City of Regina is asking residents following the second annual launch of its interactive budgeting tool.
The online tool allows you to adjust services costs and tax rates, accordingly. It also gives you an extra $500,000 in case your budget is running short.
"(The tool is) an opportunity for people to understand what the services are that we're providing to them,” said June Schultz, the city’s director of finance.
“There are a number of people who do their own family budgets, and this is no different. People work hard at ensuring that they have resources that are available to do the things they want to do. This is just very similar to that.”
Last year, nearly 1,700 people visited the city’s budget website, according to Schultz. She says only 200 of those people submitted their budgets on the website.
The only difference to the tool this year, Schultz says, is the 2016 allocation of service monies.
To better understand how a budget is built, the city has also relaunched its "Doing What Matters Most" video for the second straight year.
Residents will have a chance to raise their budget concerns with the city's chief financial officer, Ian Rea, via a Twitter “Ask Me Anything” event on Nov. 24. The budgeting tool will be available until Nov. 30.
The budget itself will be released to the public on Feb. 12. City council will make its final decision at its Feb. 13 meeting, during which residents can also address any of their concerns.
