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Problems and Purpose

In 2018, the City of Winnipeg was again facing a projected shortfall, with the 2018 sum expected to be $88 million. Similar to previous years, the City of Winnipeg engaged in a public consultation to help balance revenues and expenditures. 

Background History and Context

Building on the earlier success of mass participation in City planning in the form of OurWinnipeg, the City launched public budget consultations in 2014 to solicit and compile feedback from Winnipeggers into city budget and planning priorities. This work was contracted out to a consulting firm (MNP) which was generally perceived to have conducted an ineffective process with few shifts in spending as a result of community input. The following year another consulting firm conducted a similar exercise which included a series of town hall meetings and an online survey with the results ultimately not reported to council or released to the public. This rocky start to formal budget consultations in the city caught the attention of the incoming Mayor Brian Bowman (assumed office at the end of 2014), who had made a campaign promise to improve public consultation for both the budget and other projects. To this end, Bowman established an Office of Public Engagement in 2015 with a mandate to support all City activities and projects through public consultation and engagement.

After the 2016 and 2017 budget consultation processes, the City of Winnipeg decided to revise the format of the consultation process somewhat. In lieu of formal community consultations, more numerous pop-up events were held.

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

The process was organized by the Office of Public Engagement. The Office of Public Engagement and the budget consultation process were funded through regular operations of the City of Winnipeg. 

Participant Recruitment and Selection

There were significant attempts in 2018 to promote the consultation process. Several local newspapers including La Liberte, Canstar community news outlets, and Metro. Several news releases, a public engagement newsletter, and social media postings were also mobilized. All citizens of Winnipeg were invited to participate. Pop-up events were geographically targeted to try and increase exposure of the consultation process. Additionally, there was an internal city staff survey that targeted only city staff with a small number of questions to help identify opportunities for efficiency. 

Unlike in previous years, no community groups were specifically invited to comment or participate in the process.

The telephone survey used quota sampling to produce a representative sample.

Methods and Tools Used

There were multiple different methods used to solicit information: a telephone survey, pop-up events which provided some information and invited citizens to contribute their ideas on post-it notes, online tools that included an idea forum, a budget allocator tool, and a public survey. The online tools were supported by a website. Finally, there was also an internal city staff survey which saw a high rate of participation and response. 

The budget allocator offered an interactive way for the public to spend the City budget as they wish it would be spent, and the information was valuable, but we had planned for more Winnipeggers to use the tool. In the future, a budget allocator tool that incorporates actions and consequences may create a more meaningful experience for participants, so they are aware of how their simulated budget choices might affect the City.

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

There were not opportunities for deliberation and, like previous years, the outputs were not directly tied to decisions made. 

The key outputs were relative priorities identified by respondents to the survey and online tools. Again, This meant that trade-offs were not considered and those compiling the feedback were only able to report absolute numbers in favour or against specific proposals.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

As with previous City of Winnipeg budget consultations, the results were gathered and presented to the administration and elected officials to help inform development of the budget. Priorities remained similar to previous years, with street maintenance, public transit, and economic development re-emerging. For the first year, better city planning was identified as a key priority as well. 

The city employee survey also produced independent recommendations, with the four themes emerging:

1. Improve collaboration and communication between City departments;
2. Strategic human resources practices to optimize the number of middle management positions;
3. Ensure salaries and benefits are consistent with department needs and budgets; and
4. Centralization and sharing of existing resources between departments to reduce redundancy.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

The City of Winnipeg felt that the public engagement process elicited valuable responses from the public regarding their priorities and ideas for the 2018 budget. The City recommitted to a mixture of online and in-person engagement for subsequent years.

The elimination of the community events from the 2016 and 2017 consultations meant that the only opportunity for deliberation and negotiation was also eliminated. While pop-up events appear to have increased the absolute number of participants, it is difficult to evaluate the added benefit of additional counts of priorities given that the survey and online tools already capture these preferences quiet well. 

While not mentioned in the report, this researcher notes that community organizations no longer have a systematic role to play in the budget consultation processes. This was a key recommendation from the 2014 and 2016 processes but appears to have been discarded.

See Also

Winnipeg Budget Consultations

Winnipeg Budget Consultation 2019

Winnipeg "Let’s Talk" Budget Consultation 2017

References

External Links

Notes