February 17, 2009

Citizens Locked Out of City Budget Planning

Members of the Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition (WCC) are demanding citizen input to the 2009 Winnipeg Operating Budget.

“City Council has not provided any opportunities for open consultation with community groups or individuals on the budget,” says Liam Martin, WCC Co-Chair. “The Mayor has outlined his intentions in the upcoming budget without listening to the concerns of the people of Winnipeg.”

According to information from the WCC, other cities across Canada are engaging citizens in their budget processes to ensure that their ideas are being heard and their interests are protected. For example, Toronto’s budget planning process lasts approximately eight months, and Vancouver conducts extensive polling, public forums and puts out media requests for public input ahead of the tabling of its budget.

“It seems like City Hall officials and politicians are afraid of the public – they seem to see us as a potential threat rather than a valuable asset. They’re limiting their access to information and shutting citizens out of the decision-making process,” adds Chris Leo, Professor of Politics at University of Winnipeg.

Backgrounder - The Budget Planning Process

Municipalities of all sizes have embraced the notion that public funds are best allocated when the people who pay for and use the services that municipalities provide are part of the decision-making process. American cities such as San Antonio, Birmingham, Portland, St. Paul and Dayton all include citizens in their annual budgeting. In Canada, Calgary, Hamilton, Guelph, Vancouver, St. John’s and Montreal -- to name a few -- have all opened up their budget-making processes to citizen participation.

In Winnipeg, the entire budget process takes less than three weeks from the day the draft budget is made public to the final vote on Council.  . There are no consultations prior to the budget being tabled, no advance information available to the public about the budget, no briefing.  Councillors who are not part of the Mayor’s Executive Policy Committee receive a briefing the same morning as the budget is made public.    

The only opportunity for citizens to participate in the budget process is to register to make presentations at Standing Committees and before Executive Policy Committee in a very tight timeline. These meetings occur just before the final budget is tabled and although the public can comment, substantive changes at this point are difficult and rare.   The entire process is over in 20 days.

Last year, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published three documents related to the Winnipeg budget. The third in the series, Community First, provided City Councillors with an alternative set of recommendations on how public money could be spent to meet operational and infrastructure needs.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/reports/2008/10/reportsstudies2001/?pa=A2286B2A

A public meeting to discuss the budget will be held on February 26^th at Burton Cummings Community Centre.

Toronto’s annual budget process lasts roughly eight months. From September to November individual departments and agencies prepare their budget requests. City staff integrate these separate budgets into a citywide budget. Residents then have the opportunity to offer input before the City publicly launches the proposed budget in January.

From February to April, city councillors and administrative staff discuss and revise the proposed budget, and residents submit input through deputations at City Council's committee meetings. Near the end of April, Council debates and approves the final budget. In 2004, newly elected Toronto Mayor David Miller initiated Listening to Toronto, a public participation process for the municipal budget. A series of seven three-hour sessions held across the city, which brought together over 1,100 city residents.

Since 1999, residents of Guelph, Ontario have used participatory budgeting to allocate a small portion of the City's budget. Through the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition, neighbourhood groups share and redistribute resources for local community projects, such as recreation programs, youth services, and physical improvements to community facilities.

 The Coalition takes approximately four months to collectively decide how its budget funds are allocated, and another year to implement project funding. The budget deliberations start in December and allocations are decided by April of the next year. The process is funded and administratively supported by the City and established community organizations, and organized and facilitated by representatives of neighbourhood groups and individual citizens.

In 2003, the Montreal borough of Plateau Mont Royal put in place a number of Citizens Commissions to develop issue specific policy (e.g. housing, parks and recreation, transportation planning) at the neighbourhood level. Residents are elected to the Commissions, which deliberate on issues relevant to the community and make recommendations to the Borough Council. In the Montreal municipal system, the borough is roughly equivalent to the Community Committee level in Winnipeg.

Vancouver’s annual budget process begins in November when the City releases a preliminary budget report, at which time senior finance administration briefs Council and the union representing civic employees. During the month of February City Hall engages in a public consultation process that includes polling, public forums and a media campaign requesting citizen input.

In Vancouver, an important part of the consultation process is informing citizens about the importance of the services the City provides in the context of Federal and Provincial downloading. In past years, when the City has expected a budget shortfall (such as the 2004 Operating Budget), public consultations have asked citizens to prioritize the programs and services they think are important and suggest levels of taxation necessary to provide those services.

Section 166 of the City of North Vancouver’s Community Charter mandates that “council must undertake a process of public consultation regarding the proposed financial plan before it is adopted.” In North Vancouver this process includes a series of public meetings, facilitated focus groups on specific issues, random surveying, and consultation with stakeholders in developing lines in the budget that affect them.

Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition is a grassroots non-partisan organization dedicated increasing public participation in city government.

The Winnipeg Citizens’ Coalition (WCC) is a broad-based, progressive, democratic, socially and environmentally conscious collection of individuals whose goal is to improve quality of life in Winnipeg by acting together for positive social and economic change. We are dedicated to working towards an alternative vision for our City by fostering more citizen participation in civic government, promoting social justice, improving our city’s natural environment, ensuring more open and accountable civic government, protecting the public services that we all depend on, developing safe and vibrant communities, and facilitating fair economic development opportunities for all Winnipeggers. Members in the WCC come from a variety of cultural, ethnic, economic, and professional backgrounds but share a fundamental belief in ensuring all Winnipeggers benefit from our city’s success. We believe strongly in putting people ahead of partisan politics, and view ourselves as citizens not simply as taxpayers.