Some minor improvements could be coming to the 2020 budget deliberations.
Municipal staff will bring forward a report to council during Monday night's council meeting recommending that some changes be made to the 2020 budget, including broadcasting the budget deliberations live.
A previous motion, introduced by Councillor Melissa Harrigan, was approved in March 2019, asking staff to look at the possibility of broadcasting budget deliberations with YourTv Chatham and on Facebook Live, similar to how regular council meetings are broadcast.
"Chatham-Kent Council has a goal for open and transparent government and... the budget process is a crucial and important process for short and long term policy-making, strategy discussion, and goal setting within the community of Chatham-Kent that deserves to be continuously improved and enhanced," stated Harrigan's original motion.
In April, a 22 question survey was sent out to members of council regarding their thoughts on the 2019 budget process and any recommendations for improvement. A total of 10 councillors responded.
"Overall, the results positively reinforced keeping with the 2019 budget process with only minor improvements," read the staff report.
When asked if they thought broadcasting the budget meetings would alter voting decisions, the response was split, five councillors said "yes" and five said "no".
According to the report, it would cost an estimated $3,000 to $5,000 depending on the number of budget deliberation meetings required. The cost would include accessible captioning for the ability to replay.
Another proposed change is making a slight alteration to the community open houses held before deliberations.
A total of five community open houses were held before the 2019 deliberations to give residents an overview of the proposed budget. In the surveys, a total of nine councillors said both the length of the open houses and the number of open houses held were just right. Seven councillors said the content at the open houses was optimal, two said they thought the content was too technical and one councillor said it was not detailed enough.
"I did think that some of the discussions were a bit too technical. For example, "CPI" as a term is not known by the average resident. It may be helpful to have a "budget basics" handout or video to show at the beginning of the presentation," read one of the survey comments.
After reviewing the council survey, The Executive Management Team is suggesting that during the 2020 community meetings, there is less time allotted for staff presentations and more time spent on having an open discussion with residents.
Staff are also suggesting that recommended facility closures are brought to regular council meetings before budget deliberations begin and after community consultations have taken place. According to the report, this was the intended process previously but now is considered the required process.
Council will vote on the proposed changes Monday night.