2024 Long-term Financial Statement: Reserves and Debt be received for information. That $1,000,000 be transferred from the Court Contingency reserve (211) to the Courts Capital reserve…

1:21:47Okay. Councillor all over to you. Please.

1:21:50Thank you, Mayor Guthrie. Can you hear me all right?

1:21:53Yeah, you're coming through great.

1:21:55Perfect. Thank you, Mizzow through you to Mizzow Dwyer.

1:22:00Thank you very much for an incredibly thorough and very dense report.

1:22:05I have three or four questions.

1:22:08And I hope that they're relatively simple. I hope I didn't miss anything.

1:22:12The first one you'd made reference to aligning the budget with plan procurement over the year.

1:22:18Is this a significant shift in how we develop a budget and how we align it?

1:22:23Or is this just something that is a new standard or a new procedure?

1:22:31Thank you through the mayor to Councillor Alts. It's not a new standard. It's the way we've always done it, but it's the work in 2022 of capital prioritization was a really deep dive into making sure that that timing was aligned.

1:22:48And then we've carried that through into our 24 multi year budget and our 25 update. And we'll continue to make sure that we take a look and closely examine that as we do future updates.

1:22:58Thank you. That answers my next question. So I'll go on to the next one after that.

1:23:04Are there with our reserve and our reserve funding decreasing? How significant is this? And are there any significant cautions that you would like to express at this moment?

1:23:18So that's a complicated question through the mayor. So our reserve, the funding flowing into a reserve comes from several different sources.

1:23:30So there's tax supported capital funding that's approved through the budget process and non tax supported capital funding as well approved through the budget process.

1:23:39And those both increased through 2024 and 2025, though lower than initially planned.

1:23:46And then where there's really been a decrease is the funds flowing into the development charge reserve funds with those collections being down quite a bit in 2024.

1:23:57And so I think with the development charge exemptions represent a draw on our tax and non tax supported capital fiscal capacity.

1:24:07So that's taking money from taxes and rates and moving that into those development charge reserve funds.

1:24:14But those tax supported reserve funds then end up being the constraint for projects that have multiple funding sources because many of our projects are funded from both taxes, rates and development charges.

1:24:27Thank you.

1:24:29Then again, I'm going to skip again.

1:24:30You'd made reference that in in 2024 that there the reserve was beginning to decrease and I looked at that as a trend line.

1:24:40Is it too soon to predict whether this trend will continue or are we at a point where we should be recognizing that we will be seeing decreases in our reserves over the next couple of years.

1:24:54Thank you through the mayor. Yes, we will expect to see decreases in our reserves as we execute the plant capital projects from them.

1:25:04So there was three really large capital projects approved back in 2021.

1:25:09And those are well into the execution phase now.

1:25:13So we'll continue to see our reserve funds drawn down for those and the other capital projects that we are that have been approved by the reserve.

1:25:24Okay. Thank you. The last one's a very broad question.

1:25:28Quoting you. He said things will change. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Or is there some good and some bad that we can expect over the next few years?

1:25:40Through the mayor. I don't have my crystal ball here with me, but I think probably a little bit of both.

1:25:48Okay. Well, thank you very much for having a crystal ball. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

1:25:52Thank you, councillor old. Is there any further questions or would I be able to call the vote? Okay. Clawson and then to Gibson and then Billings.

1:26:04Yes, three. Mr. Mayor to staff. I just had a question with regard to the grants and the DC collection. I'm just wondering if the infrastructure grants that were currently we received in 2024 are making up for the reduced collections in DCs.

1:26:22Because I'm seeing it went down quite significantly. So I'm just wondering if, you know, I know that it's probably not apples to apples, but is there, you know, a few million dollars short or over or I'm just curious about that.

1:26:37Sure. Through the mayor. So I don't have a position to tell you today of where we in on a net basis ended between grants and DC collections. Definitely the grant funds are helping move those projects forward in the absence of DC collections.

1:26:54But in the next couple months, we will be preparing for the 2026 budget update and we will be preparing those updated for reserve forecasts and looking at the impact of that grant funding on on those reserve fund overall projected balances.

1:27:13Okay. Thank you.

1:27:15Thank you. Gibson and Billings.

1:27:17Yeah. Thank you through Mr. Mayor. So thanks very much for the presentation. I really did take in the report and the presentation as sort of a solidifying of what we predicted in 2021.

1:27:35We were on council and we voted for large infrastructure projects. We knew that these reserves would be impacted. We knew that that would be incurred to undertake the project.

1:27:47So respectfully, I understand the questions around like the reserve trends, but this was all well understood and and and for those of us who have been on council for more than one term.

1:27:59Um, was we were well informed that this is the trend that was going to occur.

1:28:03Uh, while we undertook these large infrastructure projects. So no, no question for me. Mr. Mayor, just just another voice of understanding here. Thanks.

1:28:12Okay, and Councillor Billings, please.

1:28:15I'm going to ask a question under the compensation. Um, it was WSIB.

1:28:24And the MSI and you've got the pressure on the incurred costs, 85% of lost time hours.

1:28:32Uh, in 2024 was the MSI and then WSIB went up 120%.

1:28:38My question is, is this just our fire and paramedics or does that those numbers include the police and communicators as well?

1:28:52Through the mayor. Um, I'm going to probably have to get back to you on the detailed part of that.

1:28:58Answer, but it is primarily our fire and paramedics.

1:29:02Um, police also, I'm not prepared to comment on police's right now.

1:29:08Okay. And the other thing I wanted to ask through your worship.

1:29:13Um, our staff going to be bringing forward a report, whether open or closed on this issue.

1:29:19Because it is an issue and it is a huge financial impact to our budget.

1:29:26Um, through the mayor, I'll, I'll step in here. Um, we are planning on bringing some information related to our employee engagement overall and have our HR team discuss a number of related compensation and employee policy direction.

1:29:51And so, uh, that report is planned to come in June at this point. I don't know if we were fully planning on WSIB. So we'll just take that away. And, uh, and maybe that'll be a separate report post June.

1:30:04Okay. And then also through you, Mr. Mayor. Um, do we know how much is in the police operating contingency reserve currently?

1:30:15Through the mayor, we can get that answer, but I do not have it at hand right now. Okay. So then.

1:30:24So then my follow up question is that.

1:30:27City staff has cautioned council many, many times about the use of our tax rate operating contingency reserve.

1:30:35So, I was just wondering, it's just a question. I was just wondering, because the reason why you're recommending the transfer to the local boards.

1:30:43You've put that in the report, but I was wondering, did staff have any thought with respect to tweaking the reserve fund policy that when we are in a deficit position.

1:30:57With our tax supported budget that maybe a recommendation wouldn't be to transfer from the consent contingency reserve to the local boards.

1:31:10Through the mayor, I know those individual police and library contingency reserves were set up to give the library and the police services the same sort of flexibility and autonomy to manage within their budgets that the city has.

1:31:26And so I did get the answer to your question earlier about the police contingency. It's 2.7 million. We do monitor those,

1:31:36those library and police contingency reserves in comparison with target as well. And if we saw those were going up well in excess of the target for those organizations, we would consider having a conversation about whether a surplus be deposited into the city's tax operating contingency reserve.

1:31:57Okay, but through you, Worship, the question was just the thought. Was there a thought with respect to when we are in a deficit position?

1:32:07Not to recommend the transfer.

1:32:12Through the mayor, not at this time. There was not. No.

1:32:15Okay. Thank you.

1:32:19Thank you, Councillor.

1:32:22With that, I think I'll call the vote then on these several motions.

1:32:28And I'll do that now. Is there anybody against 8.18.2 8.3?

1:32:41Nobody at this time.

1:32:44I think Councillor Caron is okay.

1:32:48Not quite sure what's happening there.

1:32:50Good. Yeah, my camera's acting up. Sorry. That's okay.

1:32:53Good to go. No objection.

1:32:56Looks like death, death, a sickle, you know, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

1:33:04Thank you. That's unanimous then.

1:33:07I think we'll go to you next for the code of conduct for council and local boards presentation.