Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results

TOWN OF VIEW ROYAL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE REPORT

TO: Committee of the Whole
DATE: April 7, 2022
FROM: D. Christenson, Director of Finance
MEETING DATE: April 12, 2022

Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated April 7, 2022 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 14 to March 31, 2022.

BACKGROUND:

In December 2019 Council approved the deployment of the Citizen Budget online engagement tool which provided the opportunity for View Royal users 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. In September 2021 Council confirmed the ongoing use of this tool to continue efforts to engage the public about View Royal’s budget.

Citizen Budget launched on March 14, 2022 and was open for input until March 31, 2022. View Royal residents learned about this opportunity through various social media messaging, View Royal’s website and RSS feed. Additionally, the Goldstream Gazette published an article on March 26, 2022 highlighting the budget engagement tool (attached).

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. Also included is a listing of the comments and feedback from the participants. Usage statistics show a total of 613 page views (802 last year), with 31 participants (73 last year) providing a total of 335 interactions. While these numbers may not seem significant, they compare very favorably when considered in the context of the low attendance at budget open houses hosted in previous years. Most people accessed the tool through a direct link (31%), View Royal’s website (26%) or Facebook’s mobile or desktop app (23%).

Engagement results indicate general support for funding at the levels proposed by the financial plan. Issues that are top of mind for participants include climate change, crime, parks, playgrounds and other recreation facilities, and cost to property owner (taxes and other fees). Eighty-eight percent of participants 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 attached to provide further context and insight.

While participation in this online engagement tool is helpful, we 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 or not they actually 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 7, 2022 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:

1. “View Royal launches online 2022 budget engagement tool”, Goldstream Gazette, March 26, 2022, Goldstream News Staff.
2. View Royal Budget 2022, Ethelo, April 7, 2022
3. View Royal 2022 Citizen Budget online engagement comments-unedited