There’s a lot to enjoy at a Prince George Cougars game — on-ice action, the steam train-themed zambonis, beer and fresh popcorn.
What’s not usually on the checklist is financial talk, but that could change in 2025 if an idea from the city’s Standing Committee on Finance and Audit comes to fruition.
Discussing this year’s budget engagement process at the committee’s Wednesday, Dec. 5 meeting, city staff noted that while more than 900 people filled out both the citizen budget survey and citizen satisfaction survey, attendance at an Oct. 30 open house at the Civic Centre was quite a bit lower.
Around 46 people went to that open house, with 168 participating online, said Julie Rogers, the city’s communications director.
With low attendance, high costs for preparing things like posters and the amount of staffing needed to host the open house, Rogers said administration is looking at how to improve participation for in-person budget events in 2025.
One idea is to meet people where they already are, like a shopping mall or seniors’ centre, rather than inviting residents to a specific venue.
Committee member Coun. Tim Bennett asked if a less fun task like assessing municipal funding and services could be combined into something more fun like Winterfest, volunteer sign-up day or something like the Cougars’ annual Teddy Bear Toss game.
Rogers said that was exactly the kind of thing staff were thinking about, adding that she’s also heard of other communities that have held pub trivia nights on municipal services.
The challenge with scheduling these events, she said, is that they need to be held when the information is still timely and when venues are available to book.
By the time council approved the engagement plan this year, there was only one available date for the open house.
At this year’s open house, Rogers said staff tried to break things down into components so that people just interested in, say, city parks, can come for that presentation and leave.
“The thought was that it would give our residents more choices, but it turns out that the people who attended (were there) through the whole thing anyway,” Rogers said.
Addressing the feedback from residents itself, Rogers said that the platform the city hosted its online surveys on, SocialPoint, has said the engagement rate from residents was 31.2 per cent.
Their typical engagement rate, she said, is between two and 12 per cent.
As previously reported by The Citizen, residents voiced a desire for status quo spending by all but two city departments. Those exceptions were corporate services, where residents wanted a five per cent funding decrease, and infrastructure management, where they wanted a five per cent increase.
That desire for more infrastructure spending, Rogers said, shows “a level of sophistication and pragmatism by our residents” as most people wouldn’t know what that is.
Coun. Trudy Klassen said one of her concerns was that while residents’ responses might have shown sophistication, those respondents may have largely been from the city’s upper middle class and feedback might not have been received from people in other socioeconomic groups.
“I think the responses we received indicate a level of interest primarily of understanding of municipal services, but I don’t think that necessarily means they’re coming from a socioeconomic status,” Rogers responded.
Roughly, all zones of the city had a similar level of response to the surveys.
Committee chair Coun. Cori Ramsay was surprised by the 277 paper surveys that were submitted by residents at two branches of the Prince George Public Library, two seniors’ centres and the open house.
She said she was glad that paper surveys were made available, as they could reach people who might have otherwise been underrepresented in the results.
Ramsay also said it’s important to keep the questions asked of residents similar from year to year so that the city can track the trends shown in the answers.
Some of the budget engagement efforts were made possible by a one-time allocation of $50,000 to the communications department approved at a Jan. 23 budget meeting.
The committee discussed whether it would be prudent to double that funding for 2025, though Rogers cautioned that due to staffing constraints there was no guarantee that all that extra money could be spent.
A motion proposing that staff prepare a report on how that $50,000 was spent so that council could consider that information for the 2025 was tied and therefore defeated.
