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The results of a community survey recently released by the City of North Bay will play a hand in formulating various municipal budgets this year.
Deputy Mayor Maggie Horsfield, who also serves as budget chief, sees the survey results as one of many tools to determine what matters most to ratepayers.
"I was really happy to see the number of people who responded to the survey," she said in a media scrum before the holidays. "We looked at other municipalities that offered the community survey — some of them much larger than our own — and they received less response.
"The first time doing that survey and seeing that engagement level, I was happy to see. I do think the responses are reflective of conversations we hear across the community, ranging from increased service levels to wanting to find efficiencies but defining where those efficiencies may be, there is a lot of education that needs to happen still."
Much of North Bay's sitting council ran on transparency and community engagement platforms. In years gone by, robust budget back-and-forth with taxpayers has often been a difficult nut to crack. Many are indifferent to the process. Some likely don't see how an email can make a difference.
Enter the community survey, conducted in late summer 2024. More than 2,000 residents participated in the online survey, providing their feedback on budgeting
priorities, services, transit, communications, and customer service.
"While the survey is non-scientific, it offers a snapshot of community sentiment that, combined with other data, will help inform decisions," according to a City of North Bay news release. "Key themes emerged from the survey responses, most notably the importance of Community Safety and Well-Being. This was identified as a top priority for the Mayor and Council, with many respondents emphasizing the need for focused attention in this area."
The community survey results demonstrated a range of views on managing rising costs and municipal property taxes. "While acknowledging ongoing efforts to identify operational efficiencies, nearly half of respondents supported increasing taxes to maintain or expand services. Others, however, preferred either maintaining current tax levels, even if it meant a reduction in the quality or quantity of services, or lowering taxes and reducing services altogether."
"This is what our community shared in the community survey, wanting to see more investments in those key areas so we're going to deliver on those," Horsfield says with a nod to public safety and infrastructure.
Horsfield has been trying to break down barriers by encouraging the community to share its budget feedback through new avenues, including her newsletter and a recent podcast guest appearance.
The public portion of the budget process gets underway this week with special committee meetings addressing the water/wastewater budget planned for Wednesday, Jan. 8 and Thursday, Jan. 9. The operating/capital budget deliberations will begin in March.
The proposed water/wastewater budget includes a 4.99 per cent increase over 2024, a rise of just over $1.3 million from $26.2 million to 27.5 million. See the water/wastewater budget and the associated staff report.
"With the ongoing increases that we see across the board, it's the cost of doing business these days," Horsfield says about the overall budget process. "Working with our service partners, finding ways to be creative and efficient, to utilize reserves that have been built up, now is the time to consider whether we should be using those funds to help offset those costs, is important."
See related: North Bay Police looking for significant budget increase for 2025
In light of the requested 12 per cent increase in the police budget and potential rises in budgets from agencies, boards, and commissions, Horsfield acknowledges there will naturally be demands on the overall budget.
"We'll [soon] know more where those pressures are and staff are going to be working hard to see where we can push it a bit more to help keep that number down. I don't anticipate seeing that level of increase [like 12 per cent from the police] overall but I do know it does have an impact on the overall tax increase this year."
Still, the budget chief added, "As we get closer to the City's deliberations for the operating/capital budgets in February and March, I anticipate there will be some tough conversations."
