Municipal Budget 101 скачать в хорошем качестве

Municipal Budget 101

Meet Ross. He is a resident of Saugeen Shores who is interested in learning about what happens to his tax dollars and the municipal budget. Visit SaugeenShores.ca/Budget to review this year's budget information. Voice: This is Ross. Ross is a resident of Saugeen Shores. He pays taxes, he drives on municipal roads, walks on Town trails and takes his kids to the park near his house. But what Ross doesn’t know is how his tax dollars are being spent. Does Ross know how the budget is put together? What the heck is the budget anyway? This is Dan. Dan is the Treasurer with the Town of Saugeen Shores. Dan: Listen Ross, my job is to put the budget together to ensure that departments are getting the funding they need, and to ensure that Council and residents are getting proper information on how money is being spent. It’s in everyone’s best interest to spend responsibly and to deliver the best service to our residents. Let’s talk about taxes. Taxes are a must to ensure we can deliver services to the community. But did you know your taxes are split between the County, the school board and your local town government? Let’s talk about how we spend our share of your taxes. Like many businesses, we have money coming in, forming our “revenue”, and money going out, forming our “expenses”. Revenue comes from many different sources – grants, government funding, user fees, and of course, your property taxes. Expenses are comprised of everything the town spends money on. Just like a business, we need to spend money to invest in our future and our operations. Expenses come down to two major categories – Operating and Capital. So money comes in, money goes out, and there’s a lot of coordination, policy and effort in between. My job is to be sure it’s being tracked and happening effectively. Let’s focus on spending, starting with operating expenses. Operating expenses make up about 75% of our total budget. Operations include: keeping the lights on, clearing the snow from the roadway, and arranging service contracts like the one we have with Bruce Area Solid Waste and Recycling for garbage pick up. What do you think Ross – making some sense? So, where else are we spending money? We have a ‘capital’ budget too. Capital can be describe as the ‘big ticket’ one time purchases that have an impact for years to come – large tools and infrastructure we need to do the job. Capital items could be road upgrades, new playground equipment, a new trail, new lighting in our downtown cores or maybe a new fire truck. Want to learn more? The Council meetings to review the operating and capital budgets have taken place, but the meetings were recorded and are posted to our YouTube channel. If you’d rather read line by line about the budget, what we’re funding and how, you can read the full budget packages online. I mean, what’s more fun than municipal budgets? Voice: Thanks for taking the time to learn about the Town of Saugeen Shores municipal budget. If you have questions or comments reach out to us on social media, @SaugeenShoresON, or send us an email at [email protected] or give us a call at 519-832-2008.