Getting the message out to as many people as possible prompted city council to fund a communications strategy.
In the latter part of 2017, $25,000 was earmarked for reaching the people, with another $10,000 for this year.
The $10,000 is being used to hire a part-time contract social media person.
“Obviously we want to move more in that direction considering more and more of the population is using that means to communicate,” said Carl Bannister, the city’s chief administrative officer.
The $25,000 in 2017 was divided up into three projects.
One portion, $14,000, went towards a communications tool kit to be used by staff doing press releases and similar communications, but more focused towards social media. It was expected the tool kit will be used by the new social media person.
Another $5,000 was for a communications plan for the Ross Street Underpass project, with the purpose of setting out the steps the city will take to inform the public in preparation for a referendum in October 2018.
And the third, $6,000, went to making the budget process more friendly.
All three projects were undertaken by Urban Systems consultants.
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At the beginning of budget day deliberations in November last year, Thérèse Zulinick of Urban Systems gave what she called a ‘Finance 101’ presentation. She said the intent was to have the information made available to the public more regularly.
“How does all of this work? What’s the mystery between the big binders and all of the numbers…? Where the money gets spent, where it comes from and how do you try to merge those together for everybody.”
About a dozen people were present in the gallery, mostly those who are in charge of different areas of the city’s budget.
Couns. Tim Lavery and Kevin Flynn had championed the idea of making the budget process more transparent and accessible.
At the close of the presentation, Flynn termed it a great first step for financial literacy, and said he hopes next year the information provided will reach more people.
When the communications strategy was passed last year, Mayor Nancy Cooper said all of council was happy to approve it.
“We realized in order to get the right information and timely information out, we need some help. We don’t have a communications person.”
@SalmonArm
marthawickett@saobserver.net
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