City Hall Welcomes Your Comments on the Community Tax Rate, Utility Charges and Budget

Do you feel you pay too much in property taxes and utility fees to city hall? Do you want to give kudos to a valuable city service that you want to see maintained? Are you simply just interested in what the community spending priorities are? The next couple of weeks offer a great chance to provide constructive input to the 2010 city budget. On February 9th 2010, at 7pm, at the Sports Action Lounge at Interior Savings Centre, city council will be hosting a public budget consultation. It's a great opportunity to learn more about community spending priorities and the taxes / fees we pay.

If you can't make that meeting and would still like to provide input into the budget or get more information, there are a couple a different ways to do so. First, you can contact Sally Edwards, City Hall's Director of Finance, who can be reached at 250 828 3413 or at [email protected]. Second, you can also contact Mayor Peter Milobar at 250 828 3495 or at [email protected]. Third, you can contact your favourite city councillor(s) - their contact info available at http://www.kamloops.ca/mayor/councilmembers.shtml.

Comprehensive information on the city financials is available in the city "budget book", formally known as the 2010-2014 Financial Plan. The introduction to this book - section A - is really well presented this year and provides a good overview. The other sections of the book go into more detail. The budget book can be picked up at city hall front desk or downloaded from http://www.kamloops.ca/finance/financialplan.shtml.

The February 9th public consultation meeting comes towards the end of the city budget planning process. In July 2009, the process started off with city hall's senior staff approving budget timelines and guidelines. All city departments are asked to look at the previous year's revenue and expenditures and to submit projections for the 2010 budget. Then, senior city staff goes through the projections at least twice before the discussion comes to city council. City council are given a list of supplemental budget items to discuss. The public consultation is held, and then council meets one more time on specific budget matter