As part of this year’s budget process, a service level review and prioritization exercise is underway. At today’s regular Council meeting, administration provided an update on the process for this core piece of budget work.
From July 8 – 30, Council was surveyed on each of our organization’s 275 service levels. This survey was intended to understand Council’s appetite to explore possible changes to any service level in the future to reduce expenses.
“We’re facing another challenging budget year, needing approximately $20 million to balance the budget,” said Mike Olesen, Growth and Finance General Manager. “While some of this can be achieved through property tax and utility user fees, we need to consider additional ways to reduce expenses to balance the budget.”
On September 3, administration will bring a report to Council with a full review and analysis of the service levels they identified. They will then provide formal direction to administration on what to include in the budget recommendations in November. No decisions on service level changes will be made on September 3.
In addition to the service level review and prioritization process, a number of other changes have been made to the Budget 2025 process in an effort to make budget more clear and understandable:
- A budget charter was developed to guide both administration and Council through the budget process. More information about the charter is available at .
- Earlier and more meaningful public engagement was conducted, with more planned for the Fall of 2024. The “What we Heard” report from the engagement completed to date is available here.
- Work is also underway on a long-term business and financial systems plan, which will assess our financial health and maturity and identify the actions needed to secure a stronger financial future. More information about the long-term business and financial systems plan is available at .
- Capital and utility budget will be debated October 1. Operating budget will be debated November 18-22.
For more information about Budget 2025, please visit