Recommendations outlined in the Community Benefit Agreement Program Review – 2025-220 staff report dated June 3, 2025 be approved.

3:14:06with a staff presentation by Alex Goss, manager of equity and community investment. Good afternoon.

3:14:27I'm pleased to be here alongside my colleague Alex Goss to speak with you about the staff

3:14:31recommendations resulting from the community benefit agreement program review. Today's report

3:14:37is focused on the CBA program, which fits under the umbrella of our larger community investment

3:14:41program managed by the equity and community investment team. I'd like to acknowledge the

3:14:46speed at which this report came to you and purposefully to be here in advance of the budget

3:14:53process. And I'd like to recognize Alex Goss, Stacy Denigin and Michelle Wood, and all of our

3:14:59departmental CBA liaisons across the organization who work so collaboratively to advance this work

3:15:05in the first half of 2025. And lastly, a reminder that today's discussion is not about any specific

3:15:11CBA opportunity or recipient. Today should be focused on the governance of the program as a whole.

3:15:18We welcome follow up questions offline about any specific CBA, but would like to focus today's

3:15:23conversation on the CBA governance program. So with that, I turn it over to Alex Goss.

3:15:32Great. Thank you, Jody. So community benefit agreements or CBAs, as I'm going to refer to them,

3:15:43are city led agreements for partnerships to achieve key strategic objectives

3:15:49where a community partner is better positioned than the city to achieve the outcomes. CBAs began

3:15:56over a decade ago as a way to bring additional accountability and transparency to a variety

3:16:02of partnerships and agreements that existed between the city and community partners at the time.

3:16:09A review of the CBA program was initiated through the 2025 budget process as questions about program

3:16:15clarity were erased. The review was an excellent opportunity to strengthen the program, build

3:16:22additional clarity, transparency, accountability and overall trust in the program at Council,

3:16:29staff and the public level. Following the adoption of the budget, we sought support for my consultant

3:16:36and collaborated with the wealth based consulting firm collective results to support this review.

3:16:44So starting in early 2025, the consultant reviewed existing CBA templates, tools, reports

3:16:53and documents. And they also looked at practices from other municipalities and reviewed the current

3:16:59CBA process from start to finish. The consultants also engaged with stakeholders to better understand

3:17:04their experience and thoughts on the program related to assets, gaps and potential improvements.

3:17:11This included a variety of focus groups, interviews, surveys and workshops with Council and the mayor,

3:17:20with staff and with CBA recipients themselves. The engagement identified some common strengths

3:17:31and assets of the program showing the continued value of CBAs to support work done in partnership

3:17:37with the community. And the engagement also uncovered several gaps and barriers to the CBA

3:17:43program that point to a number of areas for improvement to build greater clarity, transparency

3:17:50and accountability into the program. These findings led to the recommendations being put forward in

3:17:55the CBA review report for your approval. While the report covers many more details about the

3:18:05recommendations, I'm going to focus the rest of the presentation on a few of the highlights.

3:18:11For structure and purpose of the program, there are two pivotal recommended changes to the CBA

3:18:18program as a result of the review. These changes in particular have a trickle down effect through

3:18:24several of the recommendations and you might see how it impacts some of the other recommendations as

3:18:28well. The first is to reframe CBAs as city-led agreements for prioritized work. Being city-led

3:18:38clarifies that many of the processes around CBA identification, budget and appropriateness

3:18:44are to be determined at the city and departmental level. For example, the initiation of a CBA going

3:18:50forward would start by identifying the need and priority of the departmental level and emphasizing

3:18:56the work that is needed instead of simply the organization doing the work helps focus reporting

3:19:02and outcomes and CBA selection on the work that is needed. As a practical example of this would be

3:19:11reframing the Guelph Legion CBA, which names the organization. That would be reframed as a

3:19:18remembrance to CBA supporting the commemoration of veterans and those whose lives were lost.

3:19:23As a result you can see CBAs become more focused on the importance and impact of work instead of just

3:19:29the organization. The other significant recommendations in this section are about

3:19:35additional transparency around process and governance and they're also reflected throughout

3:19:40the other recommendations as well. Related to CBA opportunities, selection of budget,

3:19:49the recommendations propose new processes that align with key city planning milestones around

3:19:54strategic plan, key master plans and multi-year budgeting. New and expiring CBAs will be integrated

3:20:01into departmental budget processes and prioritization for greater departmental ownership and accountability.

3:20:08While staff, departmental liaisons are not new to the program, the recommendations would formalize

3:20:15liaison rules more consistently to strengthen those departmental connections and to allow for

3:20:21some arms length separation between liaisons and CBA, the CBA staff advisory group. So the advisory

3:20:29group will be established from across multiple departments to assess CBA appropriateness,

3:20:36program compliance and determine which CBAs may be appropriate for a public expression of interest

3:20:41process. And related to creating greater accountability and improving reporting,

3:20:51staff will work with legal to update the CBA agreement and template with clear processes and

3:20:57timelines built in while building mutual understanding and expectations with CBA recipient

3:21:03organizations. New accountability measures will be developed with support from internal audit,

3:21:08including the development of a quality audit program for CBAs. Additionally, essentialized

3:21:14feedback mechanism will be developed for end users to report concerns or issues with CBA funded

3:21:20work and activities back to the city. Finally, a new evaluation framework will be developed with

3:21:26support from corporate performance and strategy to align data, objectives, outputs and outcomes

3:21:33with the strategic plan and to better demonstrate the community impact of the work being done on the

3:21:38behalf of and in partnership with the city. Implementing the recommendations will enhance

3:21:43the governance processes, budgeting and evaluation of the CBA program and with your approval,

3:21:50the equity and community investment team will operationalize the recommendations to align with

3:21:57the 2026 budget process where possible and fully implement into 2026. So thank you very much for

3:22:07your attention and for having to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much.

3:22:15First, we should put the motion on the floor. Yes. The recommendations outlined in the

3:22:23Community Benefit Agreement program 2025-2020. Staff report dated June 3rd, 2025. Be approved.

3:22:31Will anyone move that for me? Councillor Goller? Seconded by

3:22:37Councillor Allt. And we have questions. So we have Councillor Goller. Go first.

3:22:45Thank you and through you, Chair Katelyn. Thank you very much for the presentation.

3:22:50I'm really excited to see the review and the update to our community benefit agreements.

3:22:56I wanted to ask something that I didn't see explicitly mentioned was consideration about

3:23:03governance and having city representation on boards. And I'm thinking for some of those

3:23:07community benefit agreements that are more substantial, will that be a consideration as

3:23:12part of the review? How we can participate in their board membership or other measures to

3:23:19be part of that governance for those organizations? Yeah. Thank you for the question through the

3:23:25Chair. Certainly in the recommendations, we talk about an increase of accountability for

3:23:33some of those larger CBAs. Currently, there are certain agreements where staff are involved in

3:23:40the structure of an organization. So that is something as we start to operationalize some

3:23:46of the recommendations. That's something we could certainly consider. And what would that

3:23:53look in terms of a process? Would it be that you go through, you make some recommendations,

3:23:59and then it comes back to council for approval? Or what would that look like?

3:24:07Through the Chair to Councillor Goller, we will begin to action these if adopted by council today.

3:24:12So certainly an example of a mechanism that's already in place is that with some

3:24:18agreements where appropriate, staff sit on the board for some of our larger CBAs.

3:24:24And as those agreements are negotiated going forward, we would look for opportunities to

3:24:28strengthen the city's relationship with those organizations. Being a member of the board

3:24:32in some capacity may be one of those going forward. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. So

3:24:38to be clear, we're not doing a wholesale review of every CBA at the moment, but as

3:24:43each of them renews, we'll review that one. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.

3:24:49Thank you. Councillor Boussadil. Thank you. And through you, Vice Chair Keaton.

3:24:56Thank you for this. I think this is great. I think it elevates it in the community's eyes,

3:25:01transparent, consistent communication and everything else. It's very good. I have a question. I love

3:25:07the department's name, by the way, equity and community investment. I love that equity lens

3:25:13to this. And with that in mind, I just have a question. When I look at page, you know, three,

3:25:19mainly when you're talking about equitable access opportunities and awareness of the CBA program,

3:25:25more city support for CBAs and the bullets, which is all very great. Can you tell me,

3:25:33is there an intentional awareness of more of the marginalized groups? And I know myself

3:25:40during this consultation process, I talked about, you know, just even now, you know, Jodi,

3:25:46you were talking about staff sitting on boards and so on. There is that mutual learning and skills

3:25:51transfers, transferring. And there are some groups that do valuable things in the community,

3:25:58but don't speak the talk and could really benefit from that. So is there a process, CBA being aware,

3:26:06communicating and so on, but being able to submit their proposal, the budget, know what even a KPI

3:26:13is, those kinds of things? Is that woven into this? Yeah, thanks for the question and through

3:26:21vice chair to the counselor. Yeah, absolutely. So the equity piece came up through some of the

3:26:27engagement as a piece that we heard from different stakeholders, including recipients themselves.

3:26:34And really, I think looking at the recommendations is partly about reducing barriers

3:26:41for equity, deserving communities in the process and in some of the documents that are produced.

3:26:47But it's also about transparency and having some open public processes that come into this

3:26:54to be able to open the door for groups that maybe don't have the connections that other groups have

3:27:02in the community and be able to make a connection into the city in a more public way.

3:27:08Thank you. There are any other questions? Oh, comments?

3:27:21Thank you, Vice Chair, Kate. I just wanted to say this was really good. I thought the consultant

3:27:29team did a really good job. I thought all of you who helped alongside this and framed everything

3:27:36the way you did through the process ended up with like a really solid report.

3:27:42By reading it, I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of it I never thought of, which was maybe

3:27:50isn't a surprise to everybody else, but it was to me. And I just thought that they were all valid,

3:27:56very valid things that we need to change to move forward. And yeah, it's just been,

3:28:03it's healthy to do these checks and balances every now and then. I just thought it was,

3:28:07I thought it was really well done. So just publicly to say thank you and to the consulting team as

3:28:12well. I thought they did a really excellent job. Councillor Busuttil sort of captured everything

3:28:17I also wanted to say. So happy to support this framework moving forward. Any other comments?

3:28:28Well, just take advantage of my final comment. I just wanted to say thank you very much. I really

3:28:33appreciated the engagement process and I think it's a great report. So I look forward to the

3:28:38changes that are going to be made. So let's call the vote. Is there anyone opposed? That's unanimous

3:28:48and that carries. Thank you. And next we have service area chair announcements. Do we have anything