Deputy Mayor Stan Frost issued dire warnings about the upcoming budget deliberations for the upcoming fiscal year.
However, the approach is always the same. Town staff are given targets and scurry off to nip and tuck to meet the fiscal goals for the year.
There are other approaches. Around the world, thousands of governments at all levels have opened up the budget process to citizenry to have a say in where their tax dollars are being spent. The idea is taken from a city in Brazil called Porto Allegri, who was one of the first and most prominent municipalities, to do this.
Here is some background on it:
Hmmmm….Ben…my memory of such events is a little different. Since I was involved.
I remember the former Mayor being very interested in such type of budget deliberations.
My memory was that it was senior members of the municipal bureaucracy who didn’t want to discuss this initiative.
Should you need reminding of those historical events–let’s talk sometime 😉
Don’t get me started on this as a squandered opportunity I have in my desk an application to Trillium for the very same thing to be pioneered in Cobourg in . Mayor Joan Chalovich didn’t want to discuss this and now it still stands a testiment to municipal ignorance.