As I have mentioned many times in this blog, I feel its important that the community get involved in our budget process. I cant begin to count the number of times during the last municipal election I heard from residents that they dont know whats going on and want to have a say.
We as a new council wanted to make sure this changed. The changes started recently with our online survey, which is still active, to get a feeling of what Miltonians want from their local government.
The full budget call report with the summary of comments can be found here.
During the last campaign, I promised to be as open and accountable as possible when it comes to feedback from taxpayers on our budget and along with other councillors in the “Hawthorne Village” area, we have scheduled an informal “Budget Input Session” to hear what YOU have to say.
The date has been finalized and the room has been booked. Monday July 11th at 7pm at the Milton Sports Centre (Room 4) we will sit down and listen to your opinions on what services you would like to see. The topics will range from transit, community services, parks, taxes, and the hospital levy that was implemented by council in the 2011 budget.
The online survey gave an overview of what Miltonians were thinking. A majority of those surveyed felt that council should keep potential tax increases to 1-2%, maintain many services at their current levels and was pretty much split on the hospital levy. Given the fact the response was down the middle regarding the levy, many of the comments showed that more public input was needed before passing such a measure.
Also, if you have not been able to submit your thoughts through the survey, it is still open at the Milton site for you to complete. The deadline was for submissions to be included in the Budget Call report, but they will keep the survey online until August 18th.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FNVPFC8
If you have any comments or questions before hand, please email me mike@mikecluett.ca
We look forward to seeing you on the 11th