Grey Highlands council would like to see a more efficient process to set the 2025 budget.
At its meeting on July 17, council accepted a staff report outlining the process and timeline for setting the 2025 budget. Council is aiming for a much quicker pathway to the budget after the 2024 process dragged on for some time.
“I’m hoping we can have a more organized and efficient approach to the budget this year,” said Deputy Mayor Dane Nielseon.
In the report, staff proposed a timeline for the 2025 budget process. In August or September, council will hold a closed committee of the whole meeting for training and discussions with staff about the budget package councillors receive, information provided and recommendations to be more efficient.
In December, the draft 2025 budget will be presented to council on a high level at a committee-of-the-whole meeting. Following the release of the budget, the municipality will conduct public consultation through social media, the municipal website and newspapers.
Three days will be set aside for committee-of-the-whole budget deliberations. Once those are complete, a budget public town hall meeting will be held to gather public reaction to the proposed budget. The public meeting will be followed by a special council budget meeting for changes to be made and for a final budget to be approved. The budget bylaw will then come forward to a regular council meeting for approval.
Service levels in the proposed budget will be set based on existing levels and new services/initiatives will be presented to council separately with a full business case.
Councillor and finance chair Tom Allwood said he was pleased to see efforts were being made to speed up the process. Allwood acknowledged the 2024 budget was “difficult times.”
“It’s encouraging we’re looking to refine and improve our budget deliberations. I look forward to the process starting as early as August,” he said.
Coun. Nadia Dubyk said setting the budget quicker would be a benefit to the municipality and would allow staff to move ahead with projects and tender requests. She called the lengthy process used for the 2024 budget “a drain on resources.”
“It was a drawn out process, I think we took too long,” she said.
Coun. Paul Allen said he was not happy with the report and said he would have expected more council involvement in determining the proposed budget process.
“I’m a little bit disappointed we weren’t consulted prior to now,” said Allen, who questioned the need for council to receive training on the budget. “I’m not keen on the education and training. I’m not sure who staff is looking to change.”
CAO Karen Govan said the training session would be an opportunity for council, herself and Treasurer Anna McCarthy to have a discussion about the budget process. Govan noted that during her performance review with council, she was tasked with improving the budget methodology.
“Council asked me to come forward with a better method for bringing in a budget,” said Govan.
Nielsen agreed with the CAO.
“I found the budget process to be inefficient,” he said, referring to times council backtracked on budget items for more discussion only to decide not to make changes. “What is happening at our table that is preventing us from being more efficient? In the training session, we can be frank with each other. We need that opportunity to have a frank conversation.”
Allen said he would have expected council more involved in formulating the approach for setting the budget.
“This is our budget and we should be in on these decisions,” he said.
