City of Regina wants your input on budget

The City of Regina is getting ready to figure out how to spend taxpayer dollars in the coming year.
 
The city has launched its pre-budget tools for taxpayers to learn a bit and give some input.
 
An updated video, “The Regina Budget: Doing What Matters Most”, has been posted to its website, and the interactive budgeting tool was also launched on Monday.

The tool allows people to go through and decide how they would allocate money in the city budget and how they would balance the budget as well.
 
The interactive tool has been used for two years. June Schultz, director of finance for the City of Regina, said almost 1,700 people visited the website last year and 200 people submitted their budgets to the city.
 
Schultz said the budgets citizen create are given to councillors.
 
“It provided them with information about what citizens are saying about what their priorities are,” said Schultz.
 
Schultz said it’s like creating a household budget, which many people do themselves.
 
“People work hard at ensuring that they have resources that are available to do the things they want to do and this is just very similar to that.”
 
The tools will be available until Nov. 30.
 
The city’s Chief Financial Officer will also conduct an “Ask Me Anything” on Twitter on Nov. 24 between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to answer questions about the budget.
 
The budget will be released Jan. 12 and city council will have a special council meeting to debate the budget on Feb. 13.