City of Calgary launches Phase 2 engagement for the 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets

The services that matter most to Calgarians, matter most to us.

That’s why The City is continuing our conversation with Calgarians as we build the 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets. Starting today, online engagement is open with a survey on service value, equity and inclusion, fiscal responsibility, social wellbeing, sustainable growth and change, and more. There will also be pop-up events across Calgary through the month of September, with opportunities to speak to City staff. The insights The City gets from this engagement will be provided to City Council to consider when making decisions on service plans and budgets in November.

“The input we get through public engagement contributes to a data-driven approach to decision making and planning,” said Chris Stewart, Director, Corporate Planning and Performance at The City of Calgary. “Collecting opinions and getting detailed experiences of how people use City services allows us to understand their needs. And then we’re able to adapt our services to better meet those needs.”

In February and March, The City asked Calgarians what they value about City services. Feedback was collected through the online Engage portal, City social media channels and through the Talking City initiative. We asked Calgarians to rank what they valued most within 42 public-facing services and tell us why they picked the top value. In addition, we asked their thoughts on user fees and how supportive they are of The City trying new initiatives. We had over 6,300 responses. Full results can be found in the What We Heard Report.

That input is being used to build the 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets, along with Resilient Calgary: Council’s Strategic Direction 2023-2026, which guides the development of initiatives, strategies and performance measures. Additionally, in July, Council set a financial envelope to work within, which is the maximum total budget increase. Administration also identifies risks, monitors benchmarks, and examines trends to build in future resilience.

“We can’t always do all of the things that Calgarians want because our resources are limited and we need to keep taxes affordable,” said Stewart. “So, we look at where improvements can be made while finding efficiencies to save money and we make tough decisions prioritizing the most important things for the next four years.”

Phase 2 of engagement is important to get a deeper understanding of how Calgarians use City services in their day-to-day lives to present a complete picture to Council before deliberations and decisions in November. In-person opportunities include:

For more information and to fill out the online survey, please visit engage.calgary.ca/YourServices. 

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