What We Heard - Budget 2024 Report Now Available

The District of Sooke invited residents to provide input into the District’s 2024 Budget from June 21 to August 20, 2023. Throughout the engagement period, participants provided feedbackClick image to view reportby survey and at community pop-ups --- engaging more than 1,000 persons through all mediums.

The What We Heard Report summarizes our approach to engagement, including who we heard from, how we listened, and what we learned.

What we heard from participants will be used to help inform the 2024 budget and highlight for Council what is important to residents as work is undertaken to update the financial plan and finalize next year's budget.

Through this engagement, we sought to understand more about:

• Residents’ quality of life and opportunities for the District to enhance the quality of life for our residents;
• The importance of various local government services and the value residents feel they are receiving for current services;
• What changes residents would like the District to make regarding services; and
• How much residents would like to see invested in long-term infrastructure maintenance and replacement.

Through this engagement, we also looked to educate residents on the current availability of District services and the limitations of the District’s budget.

A variety of engagement tactics allowed as many voices as possible to be heard, given available resources. These experiences included detailed information on the Let’s Talk Sooke Budget information page (letstalk.sooke.ca/budget), ten community pop-ups at local parks and markets with an interactive dot-voting station taking place on evenings and weekends, and a survey in three forms: digital short form (open 24/7 for 2-months), digital long form (open 24/7 for 2-months), and a random household sample print survey (delivered to 200 households).

While analysis and interpretation have been conducted in-house with best efforts to exclude any potential bias, raw data is included in this report in our commitment to complete transparency.

In short, through the range of feedback received, the key priority areas that emerged are:

• Ability to safely walk or bike around Sooke;
• Traffic planning and management, including road maintenance;
• Emergency response services (police and fire);
• Parks and greenspaces (including care for the environment);
• Health and wellness services; and
• Community planning.

Further to the above priorities, other data highlights include:

• 61% of survey respondents rated their quality of life in Sooke 4 or 5 stars; 30% rated their quality of life in Sooke as average or 3 stars and 9% indicated a less desirable quality of life with 8% giving 2 stars and 1% giving 1 star.
• 72% of respondents to the long-form survey reported being satisfied with the overall value they are receiving for District services with 45% rating the value paid for District services 3 out of 5 stars; 20% rating 4 out of 5 stars and 7% rating 5 out of 5 stars.
• In looking at specific service areas, the majority of residents expressed satisfaction with ALL District service areas. Long-form survey respondents indicated:
  • the highest level of satisfaction with Fire Rescue Services --- 90% of respondents shared they are satisfied or feel they are receiving good or excellent value from this service area.
  • the lowest level of satisfaction with local roads --- 59% of survey respondents shared they are satisfied or feel they are receiving good or excellent value from this service area.

Lastly, additional key learnings to inform the process as a whole include:

• To increase services, an increase in property taxes is required. In doing so, staff are committed to ensuring utmost fiscal responsibility with an investment in priorities expressed by the community.
  • At the request of residents during last year’s budget engagement, an option to indicate where residents may wish to pay more to see services increase was asked in this year’s budget conversation.
• The longer engagement period and simplified survey work well for Sooke residents.
  • Engagement rates increased by an estimated 50% this year with numerous comments received applauding the process. Survey participation increased by 34% and in-person engagement increased by an estimated 75%.
• Capture non-resident and youth perspectives through future budget engagement processes.
  • Staff are always looking to evolve the process to receive the most relevant data and inspire ongoing commitment to local government engagement. Keen interest was expressed to include these two audiences in future budget participation opportunities.

What's next?

1. Preliminary budget development
2. Service level review and Council direction
3. First Reading (introduction) of District's 2024 Budget at a Regular Council Meeting
4. Second Reading (initial discussion) of District's 2024 Budget at Regular Council Meeting
5. Third Reading (final discussion) of District's 2024 Budget at Regular Council Meeting
6. Budget Information Video Production
7. Community Budget Open House to inform on 2024 priorities
8. Budget Adoption