Operating budget initiatives

For this year’s survey, we’re asking residents to weigh in on the allocation of $360,000 across four initiatives, and $3.5 million in funding across three initiatives.

Operating budget initiatives:

Community Grant Funding

The budget contains options to expand grants funding to new or emerging organizations in the areas of arts, culture, special events, sports, recreation or community development.

Click here to view the full explanation of the proposed options.

Option A - Status Quo $0
Option B - Account for population growth - $22,000
Option C - Account for population growth and community complexity - $39,000

Sustainable Urban Forest Strategy

Options related to the Sustainable Urban Forest Strategy offer increasing levels of proactive conservation and protection for our community’s tree canopy.

Managing our urban trees and forests is a long-term objective; making incremental improvements with a focus on the customer and a strong foundation of planning and management will be key to achieve the goals established by the community in the Sustainable Urban Forest Strategy.

Click here to view the full explanation of the proposed options.

Option A – Conserve and Protect- $50,000
Option B – Risk Mitigation & Inspection - $100,000
Option C – Tree Pruning / Proactive Maintenance - $200,000

Affordable Housing

The City is preparing an affordable housing strategy to better position itself to find solutions to growing unaffordability. The strategy is to be completed by the end of 2020. While the strategy is being developed there are existing opportunities to make progress on housing and there will likely be quick wins identified in 2020.

Homelessness & Housing Umbrella Group (HHUG) in partnership with Wellbeing Waterloo Region (WWR) is running an ALL IN 2020 campaign. The campaign is seeking to raise community awareness and resources to end chronic homelessness in Waterloo Region.

Click here to view the full explanation of the proposed options.

Option A - Contribution to ALL IN - $75,000
Option B - Contribution to All IN and $50,000 for quick wins - $125,000
Option C - Contribution to ALL IN and $125,000 for quick wins - $125,000

Leisure Access Card

The Leisure Access program provides financial assistance to residents living on low incomes who are accessing direct City of Kitchener programs. This funding cannot currently be applied to programs provided by affiliated organizations such as Neighbourhood Associations.

The budget contains an estimate for the cost of expanding the Leisure Access card to cover Neighbourhood Association fees.

Click here to view the full explanation of the proposed options.

Option A – Status Quo - $0
Option B - Leisure Access to cover Neighbourhood Association Fees - $143,000