Case Study: The City of Calgary achieves citizen-informed budget planning with Delib’s Budget Simulator

The City of Calgary - Customer Case Study

The City of Calgary faced the challenge of genuinely engaging its public in a major strategic planning and budget-setting process for its 2015-2018 action plan. Mayor Naheed Nenshi wanted to educate citizens on the difficult financial choices involved and gather their feedback in an accessible, digestible way. To achieve this, the city used a tool from the vendor Delib, the Budget Simulator.

Delib's Budget Simulator allowed citizens to try creating a balanced budget themselves, seeing the impact of their choices on both the overall city budget and their own property taxes. The solution was part of a wider campaign that resulted in thousands of participants over a 17-day period. The feedback showed citizens gained a better insight into the budgeting process, with many agreeing to a small tax increase to maintain services. Crucially, the city's final budget proposal of a 5.2% tax increase almost exactly matched the average result from Delib's simulator.

The City of Calgary

Naheed Nenshi

Mayor