The City of Thunder Bay's proposed 2025 operating budget saw a low response rate from citizens who participated in the public survey. Only less than 80 people provided feedback, prompting City Treasurer Keri Grieves to consider alternative approaches to citizen engagement for future budget consultations.
Thunder Bay , Ontario — Less than 80 people participated in the opportunity to comment on the City of Thunder Bay 's proposed 2025 operating budget over a period of approximately three weeks. This outcome has disappointed City Treasurer Keri Grieves, who feels the city may need to reconsider its approach to citizen engagement.
A report prepared for city council's meeting on Monday evening reveals that 75 individuals completed the survey on the Get Involved online platform, while another four submitted their responses on paper. The report states, 'The survey was not a random sample, and the response was not large enough to be representative of the entire population of the City of Thunder Bay, therefore it is not considered statistically significant.'The survey was published on January 17th, the same day the budget was made public, and was closed on February 4th, the day after council approved it but well ahead of the February 10th ratification date. It was promoted at a media event, on screens at City Hall, on the online platform, and extensively on social media. Besides providing access to the survey online, the city made paper copies available at a public question and answer event, as well as at all Thunder Bay Public Library branches and at City Hall.Despite the city's efforts to encourage participation, a report on the initiative from the corporate services department noted that the project should only be considered as a 'feedback mechanism' rather than a representation of the greater population. 'As the sample is quite small, the results cannot be extrapolated to the entire population without a large margin of error and must be referred as the opinions of the respondents of this survey,' it said. While adding that the results should be interpreted with caution, it said 'the feedback is still important to a transparent and thorough public budget process.' About 57 percent of the respondents to the survey indicated they were either unhappy or very unhappy with the proposed operating budget. Around 55 percent indicated they would like to see a significant decrease in funding in specific sections of the budget, while 38 percent expressed support for significant increases in various areas. In an interview Monday, Grieves said he sees public engagement as a key performance indicator for the city. 'They could be good responses, they could be bad responses. We want to hear back from the public. So if we're not even getting people to turnout, then we need to do something different.' Grieves said he's not sure yet how the city might tweak its outreach initiatives related to the budget. 'The thing I've said several times now is that it's an art, not a science. We put it out there, like this survey for instance, and hope that people are interested in where the tax dollars are going. But we're not getting enough people to the site, and filling out the surveys.' He added he's aware other Ontario municipalities are seeing low response rates as well. 'I think for next year, and going forward, we need to look at what we're doing.'
BUDGET CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT SURVEY THUNDER BAY ONTARIO PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
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