Ever wonder how the city spends its $500 million budget every year?
Wonder no more, as Greater Sudbury's communications staff have produced a short video – just under four minutes – entitled 'Understanding our City Budget,' which outlines where your tax money goes.
Communications manager Marie Edsall said Thursday staff got the idea from other municipalities, and decided to put something together they could use as a sort of budget primer for the public.
"It was kind of a long process, actually, to put this together," Edsall said. "Communications staff worked together to come up with some of the messaging, based on some of the questions we (commonly) get from the public."
Videos produced by other cities have been an effective in giving a basic explanation of where all the dollars go, so staff here decided to try it.
"Budgets aren't the simplest process to understand, so we thought we would try something a little bit different and use an animated video to try and get some of that education out," she said. "It's a half billion dollar budget, plus capital (spending). There are 60 service areas, so it's important for us as an organization to try and help residents understand the relationship between the services we provide and what they cost."
It took a while to put it together because they had to balance the need to express things simply in a short amount of time.
"We didn't want it to be too long, but the budget is pretty complicated," Edsall said. "Finance gives us the information -- in their financial language -- and then communications (staff) takes that and tries to simplify it so that everybody can kind of understand it."
Edsall wasn't sure of the cost, but she said it's something they designed so it could be used for along time.
"We can use it on social media, we're more than happy to let classrooms use it if they're interested to educate their students,” she said. “We're going to show it at our budget information sessions. We can use it for years to come, with a little bit of editing here and there."
They're hoping to promote a better understanding of the link between the services people enjoy and the cost of providing those services, Edsall said.
"It's their tax dollars, so it's important that they see the value in what we're providing to them," she said. "It's a complicated process and we want people to understand it, so they can better understand where their tax dollars go."
The video debuted at Tuesday's finance committee meeting and will be shown at the upcoming public input meetings for the budget.
You can view it here.
While more input sessions are planned, here are the ones currently scheduled:
– Tuesday, Nov. 14, T.M. Davies Community Centre / Arena, Lively, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
-- Wednesday, Nov. 15, Centennial Community Centre /Arena, Hanmer, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
-- Thursday, Nov. 16, Lionel E. Lalonde Centre, Azilda, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
