Councillors displeased with lack of public input into budget
Ian Froude and Maggie Burton displeased with lack of formal consultations
The people of St. John’s have not had their say about how their tax dollars will be spent in 2018, according to councillors Ian Froude and Maggie Burton. The councillors released a joint statement during Monday evening’s council meeting amid concerns that people’s voices were not heard in the budget document.
Burton says the September election that saw her join council got in the way of the usual engagement process, and that’s not good enough.
“The consultations for the budget should have started back in the spring,” said Burton.
“This shouldn’t be a post-election conversation. The consultations around the budget should have basically been clewed up by now. I don’t think the election is a significant enough factor to derail a complete public engagement strategy.”
Previous years’ budgets saw extensive public consultations both in person and online. While online consultations did occur through Engage St. John’s, as well as stakeholder meetings with advocacy groups, Froude and Burton say they are concerned about a lack of formal public meetings.
Froude says last year there were multiple public consultation sessions in each ward — something that did not happen this year.
Finance committee chair Coun. Dave Lane said he would have liked to see more public consultations ahead of this year’s document, but assured Froude and Burton that previous years’ consultations have informed the coming budget.
“We have done extensive consultation over the last three years,” said Lane.
“This is the last year of a three-year cycle. Before that began we had extensive engagement — most we ever had. I think the frustration they have is that after being elected — new councillors wanting to make change — there was not much time to bring the public in and they’re concerned about what that might feel like to residents.”
Lane says while a formal process did not occur as in years past, the election campaign saw potential and future councillors speaking with the public on a daily basis.
He says some of the concerns heard in the election campaign have made it to the council table.
While Lane contends the campaign effectively served as a de-facto budget consultation process, Burton says a year-round, formalized process needs to be put in place.
Speaking during the meeting, Mayor Dany Breen alluded to the 2018 budget being in the last year of the budget cycle, meaning most of the budget would have already been set in place.
Burton said she wants more public consultation, regardless of the timing.
“We’re still spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. It doesn’t matter what year of the budget cycle you’re in,” said Burton.
Neither Froude nor Burton would get specific about what consequences resulting from the lack of public input may be exposed in the budget.
Neither would say whether the concerns they’ve expressed could result in a no vote on the budget.
“We’ll just have to see,” Froude said.