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On February 5, 2015, Alex Mazer, co-founder of Better Budget TO, spoke to Matt Galloway of CBC Metro Morning about the City of Toronto’s new pilot on participatory budgeting and how to improve the city budget. Listen to the interview by clicking here. To read up on the City’s report on participatory budgeting, click here.

On February 2, 2015, Alex Mazer, Co-Founder of Better Budget Toronto deputed before the City of Toronto’s Budget Committee. To read the full deputation, click here: Deputation – Feb 2 2015.

Are you an emerging budget nerd? Local advocacy group Women in Toronto Politics has created this easy to read, informative guide to the budget: http://witopoli.com/resources/budget-101/

Today marked the beginning of the public portion of the 2015 Toronto City Budget process. Our co-founder Alex Mazer shares his initial thoughts on the proposed budget, breaking it down into process and substance. While there is still much room for improvement, we’re happy to see an improvement in how the budget is being communicated. Read his piece here.

Our co-founder, Alex Mazer, writes about the need for a new approach to budget issues in this month’s Policy Options. What is your government doing to make budgets more democratic, visionary, open and evidence-based? Budgets determine the direction of a city, and the process for creating them needs change. http://policyoptions.irpp.org/issues/environmental-faith/mazer/

Arising out of Better Budget Day[link], Better Budget TO has produced a short consultation paper[link] with some proposed changes to the City of Toronto’s budget process.  On March 18th, we will be holding an in-person consultation to discuss, test, and develop these ideas into a Better Budget Pledge.  We will eventually hope to engage mayoral and councillor candidates to endorse the pledge to create a mandate

On October 19, 2013, in partnership with the Wellesley Institute, we hosted Better Budget Day, a day-long civic engagement workshop focused on designing a better budget process for Toronto. The event brought together about 75 engaged Torontonians from across the city and from a range of fields including public policy, academia, labour, business, technology, social advocacy, journalism, and community organizing. ……………

Communications Backgrounder BBTO Description What kind of communications tools are effective for raising awareness about budgets? This group will discuss and come up with ideas around tools and methods for communicating about municipal budgets. We will look at communications tools for enhancing understanding the budget itself as well as how decisions are made. Redesigning the city website is just one piece of the com

Idea: Public Engagement   Description and Case for Change Public engagement is a crucial step in creating an inclusive, open and collaborative budget process. A more accessible, inclusive public engagement strategy can broaden the conversation around budgets and result in one which builds a city that reflects the values and priorities of Toronto residents. Toronto’s current engagement strategy falls short of thi