Moment with the Mayor: New Budget Cycle

Hi Everyone:

During the last budget, I spoke about the budget process and how we would like to revise it. In working out a new budget cycle, we were looking for a few things:

·         Enhanced openness and transparency: With a pre-planned, publicized budget cycle, everyone knows when and how we are doing the budget.

·         Public Participation: The budget cycle will be publicized, and we are asking for earlier budget input from the community. For example, perhaps the Downtown Merchants Association comes to Council suggesting that there be tax incentives for downtown improvement.

·         Savings: We anticipate that the Town will realize savings with an earlier adopted budget because we can tender infrastructure projects earlier. This year, all of our infrastructure projects are coming in on budget due to what we learned at SUMA in February: tender early.

·         Certainty: With an earlier tendering process, we will be on companies’ lists.

Here is the tentative budget cycle for 2013 – 2014:

1.       2014 Departmental Projects with Rationales: June – July 2013

·         Internal reviews and data collection to identify departmental Capital and Operating Projects.

2.       Council/Staff Budget Committee Meetings: October – November 2013

                                 i.            Budget Priorities/Goals/Scope Setting – Friday October 4, 2013

                                ii.            Pre-Budget Early Public Consultation – Wednesday October 9, 2013

                               iii.            Budget Committee Public Comments Review – Friday October 25, 2013

                              iv.            Budget Committee Final Meeting – Friday November 15, 2013

3.       Council Consultation – 2^nd week of January 2014

4.       Pre-Budget Public Consultations – 4^th week of January 2014

5.       Council Working Session and Public Comments Reviews – 2^nd week of February 2014

6.       Public Meeting of Council to Adopt Budget 2014 – 4^th week of February 2014

The net result is an intentional budget aligned with Council that includes public participation. If you have a suggestion of how we can better serve you through this process, please let me know. At the end of the process, please let us know how this can be tweaked or changed to better serve Kindersley.