Council Report: Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results

TOWN OF VIEW ROYAL COUNCIL REPORT

TO: Council DATE: April 8, 2020 FROM: D. Christenson, Director of Finance MEETING DATE: April 14, 2020

Citizen Budget Online Engagement Results

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated April 8, 2020 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 March 31, 2020.

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 2020 – 2024 Financial Plan and to provide the benefit of their views on it and related services.

Citizen Budget launched on March 13, 2020 and was open for input until March 31, 2020. View Royal residents learned about this opportunity through a householder mailer, various social media messaging, and View Royal’s website. Additionally, a Victoria News article (attached) announced the launch on March 9, 2020.

DISCUSSION:

The attached Citizen Budget report provides a summary of the activity experienced with the online tool, the results showing the level of support for funding of the various services and a listing of the comments and feedback from the participants. A total of 170 visitors viewed the site, with 82 participants spending an average of 10 minutes interacting and providing responses. 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 link on View Royal’s website.

In general, the results indicate general support for funding at levels like that proposed by the financial plan. Issues that are top of mind for participants include transportation, cost to property owner (taxes and other fees), parks, playgrounds and other recreation facilities, fire protection and emergency planning, and climate change. Fifty-seven percent of participants indicated that View Royal provides fairly good value or very good value for their tax dollars.

Participants had the opportunity to provide comments in the context of each service, and these are certainly worth reading to provide further context.

While participation in this online engagement tool in this its first year is encouraging, 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 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 self-selected, rather than being randomly chosen and underwent no vetting as to whether or not they actually live in or receive services from View Royal.

RECOMMENDATION:

THAT the report dated April 8, 2020 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

Attachment 1: March 2, 2020 Victoria news article, “View Royal launches new citizen budget tool” Attachment 2: April 2, 2020 Ethelo report, “Citizen Budget Results”