Mock budget program provides insight into property taxes
By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on August 18, 2022.
Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Deputy Mayor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel speaks to reporters about the My Two Cents project Wednesday morning at city hall.LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com
Lethbridge residents now have the opportunity to give their two cents about how they want the City operating budget to be spent, by creating one of their own.
“Lethbridge City Council in the fall will be going into the operating budget process and that is one of the most difficult decisions that council will need to make as it affects everybody’s everyday life,” said deputy mayor Jenn Schmidt-Rempel during a media event at City Hall on Wednesday.
She said the “my two cents” project gives residents an opportunity to take a look at how they would designate the budget and how that would directly impact their own property taxes.
By visiting www.getinvolvedlethbridge.ca/mytwocents, participants can build their very own City operating budget and see how their spending priorities will impact property taxes. This information will be gathered and reported back to Council prior to budget deliberations.
“They make decisions and alterations based on what they would like to pay for property taxes, based on what’s important to their family and what their priorities are, and then sort of find a balance and see what city council goes through,” said Schmidt-Rempel.
The project will run between Aug. 17 and Sept. 9 with some opportunities for in-person feedback.
“Over the next few days there are in person opportunities throughout the community, there’s one this Saturday at the farmers market starting at 8 a.m. City staff will be there and counsellor Middleton-Hope and myself will also be there,” said Schmidt-Rempel.
She said the in-person opportunities will be listed on the city website.
Schmidt-Rempel said ideally city council would like to see 40 – 50 per cent of residents taking part in the project to really give council a sense of what is important to city residents.
“Keep in mind that the city will affect your everyday life, so whether you are out at a dog park, at a swimming pool, driving to work, or taking the city transit system, all of that affects and impacts your taxes,” said Schmidt-Rempel.
There is no age range set for the project, in the hopes that people from all age groups would take the opportunity to share what is important to them.
“What’s important to yourself may not be important to somebody else at a different age group, somebody who might be in high school or somebody who might be in one of our assisted living facilities, so it’s important to gather and capture all that information because we all have different needs and different things that we want to see making our city grow,” said Schmidt-Rempel.
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15-14
Let’s see, 95 percent for homelessness and drug shoot up centers downtown, 5 percent for raises in City Hall. Nothing for the pot-holed bumpy streets all over the city. Nothing to remove all the dead trees along Crowsnest Trail, nothing for crime prevention, and on and on…..