CASPER, Wyo. — As the Casper government works to finalize its budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2026, the City Council on Tuesday laid out plans to seek public input ahead of its approval.
Using a priority-based budgeting system, city officials have determined that some of the key needs for focus in the FY26 budget are health and safety, quality of life, infrastructure needs, economic vitality, environmental sustainability and stewardship, community engagement, fiscal management and customer service.
The City Council agreed on Tuesday to create an online questionnaire to garner feedback from community members.
Proposed queries for the questionnaire will seek input on which of the city’s priorities are most important to residents, and what focuses within each priority the community members are most interested in.
At Tuesday’s City Council workshop meeting, Councilor Amber Pollock recommended adding questions that allow people to suggest new priorities or identify priorities they think shouldn’t be included. Councilor Brandy Haskins agreed with her recommendation.
However, Councilor Pat Sweeney worried that the questionnaire was already too long and that adding more questions would hurt community participation.
City Chief Financial Officer Tom Brauer said the city will be able to tell where the questionnaire respondents live, and will be able to prioritize opinions from Casper residents.
City Manager Carter Napier said the public outreach will be used to help shape the proposed budget ahead of its approval in late June.
“If you view [budgeting] as a dynamic process, it takes place over a period of time,” Napier said.
Napier recommended that the council’s budget committee reconvene after the community has had a chance to respond to the survey, to take their opinions into account.
City officials did not settle on a specific day that the questionnaire will go live, but Brauer said it can be posted to the city’s website in the coming days.