The City of Moose Jaw plans to broadcast its budget discussions itself after Shaw Communications indicated it wouldn’t show the additional meetings since extra staff would be needed to cover the events.
City council plans to hold three meetings in the next couple of weeks to go over its 2020 budget, with the first meeting on Nov. 27, followed by Dec. 4 and Dec. 11. The meetings will be live-streamed on Moose Jaw’s YouTube channel.
Coun. Brian Swanson raised the issue of how the budget meetings would be broadcast during council’s Nov. 25 regular meeting. He pointed out council held a special budget meeting on Nov. 18 and city hall’s communications manager had to jury-rig a live-stream using his laptop.
Shaw does broadcast council’s regularly scheduled meetings, but “we are basically at their mercy” of what they will broadcast since they have to bring in additional employees to cover those special meetings, explained city clerk Myron Gulka-Tiechko.
“That perhaps would be open for negotiations, but there would be prices to do that,” he continued. “But right now Shaw is providing that as a community service to Moose Jaw.”
Budget discussions
Coun. Scott McMann was curious about how thorough city administration would go through the budget, noting he wanted to ensure council had a good discussion about it especially since a “modest tax increase” is being proposed.
The approach administration plans to take is to go through all items that are new, referred or table so they can be dealt with early, while more time will be spent on areas such as the capital budget, said finance director Brian Acker. City administration has taken into account that this is the fourth budget this council has reviewed and is assuming council is now familiar with municipal operations.
The goal is to be finished by Dec. 11, he continued. There were requirements to condense some areas as part of the budget planning process, but administration will provide additional details if council desires.
Government employees
Swanson asked city administration for an update on how many provincial government employees work in Moose Jaw, a request he made at a previous council meeting.
The consultant who tracks that data had family issues recently and was unable to provide city administration with an update, said Michelle Sanson, director of planning and development services. The consultant said she would send a report by Dec. 31, but administration convinced her to provide an update for the second council meeting in December.
The next regular council meeting is Nov. 25.
