Saskatoon offers chance to play councillor

City hall in Saskatoon is trying to bring some fun to all the debate and number crunching that goes into formulating a municipal budget.

The goal is to get people involved.

It began with a Town Hall, and the annual Civic Survey.

But coming soon to a smart phone, tablet or computer near you, is a new interactive digital tool that will allow you to get deep into the budget making process.

The idea may induce eye-rolling, but the citizen budget tool actually sounds like fun. It will allow people to go to the city's website and fiddle with numbers. You get to use a sliding scale to increase, decrease or keep spending the same. Then a simulator will calculate the overall impact of the choices.

You can also drill down to your own property assessment and find out how your choices affect you.

The online citizen budget will be available starting October 19.

The city's Executive Committee is expected to talk about the efforts to engage the public in the budget process at its meeting later today.