TOWN OF VIEW ROYAL FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION REPORT - Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results

Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated April 6, 2023, from the Director of Finance titled “Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results” be received for information.

CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER’S COMMENTS:

I concur with the recommendation.

PURPOSE OF REPORT:

To provide Council with the results of the Citizen Budget online engagement open to the public from March 13 to April 2, 2023.

BACKGROUND:

Since 2019, View Royal has used the Citizen Budget online engagement tool to provide an opportunity for View Royal constituents and other stakeholders to both be informed about the content of the five-year financial plan and to provide the benefit of their views on it and related services.

Citizen Budget launched with information about the 2023-2027 Financial Plan on March 13, 2023, and was open for participants to comment until April 2, 2023. This engagement tool provided an overview of each municipal service and invited participants to indicate whether they would increase, decrease, or keep service levels the same, and calculated the effect on the participant’s municipal 2023 property tax. The tool provided links to the Financial Plan Insights app and budget documents for participants looking for the complete plan. View Royal residents learned about this opportunity through various social media messaging, View Royal’s website and RSS feed.

DISCUSSION:

The attached Citizen Budget report provides a summary of the activity experienced with the online tool and the results showing the level of support for funding of the various services. The report includes a listing of the verbatim comments and feedback from the participants. Usage statistics show a total of 533 page views (2022 – 613), with 57 participants (2022 – 31), indicating a 10.7% participation rate (2022 – 5.1%). While these numbers may not seem significant, they compare very favorably when considered in the context of the low attendance at in-person budget open houses hosted in previous years.

Engagement results indicate general support for funding at the levels proposed by the financial plan. Issues that are top of mind for participants include cost to property owner (taxes and other fees), transportation, and parks, playgrounds, and other recreation facilities. Eighty-four percent of respondents indicated that View Royal provides very good or fairly good value for their tax dollars.

Participants had the opportunity to provide comments about each service and in general which are included in the report to provide further context and insight.

While participation in this online engagement tool is helpful, the Committee should note that the methodology used does not indicate statistically significant results. In other words, while the feedback and insights gained through this tool may provide a flavor of the thinking of some View Royal stakeholders and could indicate trends and areas for further investigation, the survey should not be interpreted as indicative of the opinions of all View Royal citizens. This is because respondents are self-selected, rather than randomly chosen and underwent limited vetting as to whether they live in or receive services from View Royal.

In future, Council may wish to consider funding expanded outreach efforts to target higher utilization of the Citizen Budget tool to provide more meaningful feedback.

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated April 6, 2023, from the Director of Finance titled “Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results” be received for information.

SUBMITTED BY: D. Christenson, Director of Finance

REVIEWED BY: K. Anema, Chief Administrative Officer

Attachments: View Royal Citizen Budget 2023, Ethelo, April 6, 2023