Council has agreed to schedule a weekend workshop in October to discuss the municipality’s budget.
“Department managers are working on business plans,” said Chris Albert, director of corporate services, during the Aug. 20 meeting, presenting some background before outlining a request for decision.
Once the details of those plans have been worked out, among the next steps, suggested Albert, will be to host later in September a “budget 101 session” to provide the public as well as council with an opportunity to have an informative walk-through of the budget building process and administration’s goals.
“It will also be an opportunity for the public to have input into their priorities, their service levels, their concerns,” he said.
“It’ll give us that opportunity to know what the residents are thinking before we start finalizing this budget just in case there’s anything that needs to be changed.”
After that, he elaborated, would come time for council to consider scheduling a preferred date for a weekend workshop, as requested by administration, to go through the business plans the municipality’s departments have developed.
The objective of the workshop is for administration to give council an indication of high level costs as well as outline potential strategies that might be involved, he said.
Then, roughly two weeks after the workshop will be a formal budget presentation to council. An additional couple of special council meetings will help finalize any last questions, and administration hopes to by late November or early December have the budget ready for council to adopt, he said.
“A lot of these dates are dependent on what you decide tonight,” he told council, adding that administration had suggested dates for the workshop on either Oct. 19-21 or Nov. 2-4.
Coun. Richard Warnock said he was open to either option but was concerned that the timing of the latter date could end up creating a time crunch. The councillor motioned to set the 2018 fall budget workshop for Oct. 19-21.
Coun. Cheri Funke agreed, adding the budgeting process can sometimes take longer than anticipated.
“I’d like to give administration as much time to make the December deadline to pass the budget, so I support this motion.”
Coun. Rob Wolfe inquired about the times of day involved, and Linda Nelson, chief administrative officer, said the weekend workshop would start on the Friday evening with a full day on Saturday, and depending on how much progress was made likely a half day on Sunday.
Council carried Warnock's motion with unanimous support. Council also carried a motion to set a special meeting for Sept. 19 from 6-8 p.m. at the town office with an invitation to the public to attend as well as remain after that presentation to ask questions.
