City of Guelph 2024 Consolidated Financial Statements and External Audit Findings Report, dated June 24, 2025, be approved.

20:33from our owners coming down. Is Shannon, are you going to do some opening remarks or?

20:42Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Tisha Colley-Balgrove will do some opening remarks and then pass it over to

20:47Matt Baddick from KPMG. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. And you can start whenever you wish. Okay.

20:58Can you hear me? Okay. There we go. Good evening, Mayor Guthrie, members of council and members

21:14of the public who are joining us today. I am pleased to be able to present highlights from the 2024

21:19consolidated financial statements to you today. Before I begin, I'd like to thank all members of

21:24staff and our consolidated entities for their assistance with the city's audit and consolidated

21:28statements. I truly appreciate all their efforts as preparing the consolidated statements requires

21:33extensive communication and collaboration across the city and with our local boards. The municipal

21:39act requires the city to engage independent auditors to an expressive opinion as to whether

21:43the financial statements fairly present the city's financial results for the year. At the

21:48conclusion of this presentation, Matt Baddick, partner at KPMG will present the findings from

21:53their audit. The consolidated statements presents a full picture of the city and its consolidated

21:59entities finances, which include its assets, liabilities, revenues, and expenses. In May,

22:05the city presented the year-end budget-focused results for operating capital, reserves, and debt.

22:11The consolidated financial statements uses the same data set, but includes our consolidated entities

22:16and presents the information on a public sector accounting standard basis.

22:20The consolidated financial statements are prepared by city staff in accordance with the

22:57public sector accounting standards, which we refer to as PSES. These standards are set by the public

23:02sector accounting board of CPA Canada. Public sector accounting standards uses full accrual

23:07accounting, which differs from certain aspects of the city's presentation of budget-focused results.

23:12Differences include local boards financial results and the accounting treatment of capital assets,

23:18reserves, transfers, and debt. Along with the city's financial, the city also reports the

23:27financials of the Elliott community, the Downtown Guelph Business Association, Wellington Dufferin

23:31Guelph Public Health, Guelph Public Library Board, and the Guelph Police Services Board. The city also

23:37reports the city's shareholders' equity in Guelph Junction Railway and Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc.

23:42as investments on the statement of financial position. 2024 was another busy year for financial

23:51reporting, with the city implementing two new financial reporting standards and a new financial

23:55reporting guideline. The PS 3400 revenue standard enhances revenue recognition principles and

24:01specifically distinguishes between revenues with performance obligations and revenues without

24:06performance obligations. An example of revenues with performance obligations would be fees,

24:11where the city is paid for providing a good or service. An example of revenues without

24:15performance obligations would be fines. The adoption of this standard had a minimal impact

24:21on the city's revenues and resulted in an additional $1.7 million in revenues being recognized in 2024.

24:31The city also implemented PS 3161, Public-Private Partnerships. This standard applies when a public

24:37sector entity acquires infrastructure from a private sector entity that finances and operates

24:42that infrastructure. It provides accounting guidance for presentation in the financial

24:46statements. Staff analyze the applicability of this standard to current city operations

24:51and determine there were no impacts on the 2024 financial statements. Public Standard Guideline 8

25:01provides guidance for recording intangible assets if certain criteria is met. Although not a

25:09standard, the city did review the guideline and determined that there were no impacts on the

25:13financial statements as a result of this guideline. In 2024, the city continued the trend of increasing

25:23financial assets faster than financial liabilities. As noted in the 2023 Consolidated Financial

25:29Statement Report, staff expect to see a shift in the statement of financial position with continued

25:34increases to tangible capital assets and decreasing net financial assets as reserve funds are drawn

25:39down to implement the capital program. In 2024, the tangible capital assets increase was $106.6

25:46million compared to an increase of $359,000 in net financial assets. In future years, we expect

25:53to see this gap widen as we draw down reserve funds and take on more debt to build infrastructure.

25:58Deferred contributions decreased by $17.9 million. The main driver of this decrease is

26:04development charge or DC spending in 2024 that significantly exceeded inflows into the DC reserve

26:10funds. When DCs are collected, they go into dedicated DC reserve funds and are part of

26:15deferred contributions. When DCs are spent, that is when they are recognized as revenue on the

26:19statement of operations. In 2024, DCs of $67.9 million were spent to build growth-enabling

26:27infrastructure animatities while only $36.6 million flowed into the DC reserve funds.

26:32This is a combination of DC collections, funding of DC exemptions, and interest rates

26:37earned on those reserve funds. The year-over-year increase in development charge revenues are

26:43directly linked to this with large growth-funded projects in progress in 2024.

26:48The most notable projects are the South End Community Center and the Baker Street Library.

26:57Sorry, I flipped a little early. Other long-term liabilities increased by $10.6 million compared

27:04to 2024. The other long-term liability line is for the city's tax increment-based grant programs,

27:12which are known as TIBGs. TIBGs are grants linked to the increase in property tax assessment

27:17that the city pays to developers to encourage specific types of development in the city.

27:22The three TIBG streams that are included in that liability include the Brownfield Strategy,

27:27the Downtown Development, and the Heritage Redevelopment Programs. In 2024, there were

27:32agreements in all three programs that were converted from commitments to liabilities

27:36after the eligibility criteria were met, which is the driver of the year-over-year increase

27:41in that line item. Note, $22 million in the financial statements outlines the remaining

27:46commitments for these agreements under the programs, which had a corresponding year-over-year

27:50decrease. Moving on to the statement of operation highlights. So the next three slides are

27:59highlights from our statement of operations, which are revenues and expenses. Overall, revenues

28:04increased by $101.3 million compared to 2023, and expenses increased by $46.5 million compared to

28:112023. The current slide shows the city's 2024 revenues by type. Taxation revenues and user fees

28:18account for almost 70% of the city's 2024 revenues. This is a slight decrease from the 2023 percentage

28:25of 73%. Of the remaining approximately 30%, government funding accounts for about half,

28:31with development charges, other revenues, and municipal revenues making up the remaining amounts.

28:41This slide shows expenses by type. So when looking at expenses by type, salaries, wages, and benefits,

28:48and external transfers account for the largest year-over-year increases. The external transfers

28:53grouping is where our TIBG and social service payments are recorded in the financial statements,

28:58which is why there are such large year-over-year increases in that category. Salaries, wages,

29:03and benefits expenses increase due to inflationary increases on salaries and benefits,

29:09growth positions, as well as overtime hours to meet service delivery requirements,

29:13and also due to employee future benefit costs. This chart shows the year-over-year changes in

29:23the reporting segments. The segment reporting is consistent with the reporting on the annual

29:28financial information return, which is the reason why the information is presented this way in the

29:32financial statements. Information on the changes in each segment is found in the statement of

29:37operations analysis section in the Treasurer's Report. But generally speaking, we can see the

29:42expected year-over-year changes through this view. Protection services and social housing costs have

29:47substantially increased. This aligns with the pressures we have seen from a budget perspective.

29:52The social and family services increase is a bit different because this picture only shows

29:56the expense side of the equation. From a budget perspective, municipal child care costs have not

30:02substantially increased as there has been significant investment from upper levels of

30:06government into child care. The city records our share of grants from upper levels of governments

30:11for social services in the financial statements, so these increased costs are offset by increased

30:16contribution revenues. The big year-over-year increase in the planning and development category

30:21is related to the TIBG agreements that have been converted to liabilities in 2024.

30:31I'd like to conclude my presentation by discussing some of the financial indicators the city measures

30:36using the long-term financial framework pillars of sustainability, vulnerability, and flexibility.

30:42The long-term financial framework is a set of policies and these three pillars are used to

30:47monitor the financial health and sustainability of city services. Sustainability is the city's

30:52ability to maintain required services in the present and future. Vulnerability is the level

30:57of resiliency to manage challenges while maintaining city operations and flexibility is the ability of

31:03the organization to adapt to changes and capitalize on opportunities within the operating environment.

31:12The first metric under the sustainability pillar is the cash and investments to reserve and reserve

31:16funds ratio. This ratio is an indicator of the city's ability to meet current the city's financial

31:22obligations. The minimum target for this ratio is one-to-one. That means for every dollar in

31:28reserve and reserve funds the city also has one dollar in cash and investments. A higher ratio

31:33indicates it's a stronger ability to meet current obligations. In 2024 the cash and the cash and

31:39investments to reserve and reserve funds ratio remained well above target but did decrease

31:44slightly compared to 23. The next metric is net financial assets. Total consolidated net financial

31:51assets increased by 359,000 in 2024. The city does not have a specific target for this metric

31:57but a lower increase in net financial assets shows us that the city is converting financial assets

32:02into tangible capital assets which demonstrates that the city is making significant progress on

32:06its capital plan and infrastructure backlog. Final metric in this group is the asset consumption

32:15ratio which tells us how our assets have aged in the fiscal year. An increasing consumption

32:20ratio tells us that our assets are aging faster than we are replacing them. The assets consumption

32:25ratio decreased in 2024 which tells us that the city is replacing aging assets faster than in

32:30previous years. This is again confirmation that capital strategies put forth are working. Under

32:40the vulnerability pillar the first metric is federal and provincial contributions as a percentage

32:45of total revenue. In 2024 contributions from federal and provincial governments was 16.2%

32:50of revenue compared to 17.4% in 2023. Although the percentage of government funding decreased

32:57the total government funding received in 2024 did increase. This percentage can vary year to year

33:03based on the type and amount of government funding received in the year and the timing of revenue

33:08recognition for capital grants and development charges which is linked to the execution of

33:12capital projects. While grant funding continues to be extremely helpful to move capital work

33:17forward in the face of low DC collections we keep an eye on this metric as higher reliance on

33:22federal and provincial contributions represents a greater financial risk to the organization

33:26should contributions be reduced or eliminated. Next metric is tax arrears as a percentage of

33:32taxes tax is levied. This is an important indicator of municipal economic health and indicates the

33:38ability of taxpayers to meet their financial obligations. This metric increased to 3.63%

33:45in 2024 compared to 2.80% in 2023. This increase is partly driven by a large 2024 property tax

33:52payment that was received in early 2025 as well as the postal strike in late 2024 which prevented

33:58arrears notices from being bailed prior to year end. Even though the percentage increased in 2024

34:04the city continues to have extremely low levels of tax arrears. Further information on the city's

34:09taxes receivable can be seen in the information report 2024-109 2025 property tax receivables and

34:16collections. The final metric under vulnerability is the return on is a return on investment.

34:23In 2024 the city's return on investment was 4.59% which is an increase over the 2023 return on

34:30investment of 3.44%. The increase is primarily driven by an increase in market rates and strategic

34:37investment dispositions for one time realized gains in 2024. This is higher than normal this

34:45higher than normal return on investment provided funding to help phase in the impact of the social

34:49housing increases on the tax level and help boost capital reserve fund balances. Interest rates have

34:54come down in late 2024 and early 2025 and at this time we're expecting this trend will reverse when

35:00we report to you on this when we report to you on this next year. The third pillar of the long

35:06term financial framework is flexibility. The metrics associated with this pillar are related to the

35:10city's reserve and reserve funds which were also included in the 2024 year end reserve and reserve

35:15fund reporting provided in May and so we have not included those metrics in today's presentation.

35:25Thank you for the opportunity to present highlights from the 2024 consolidated financial

35:29statements. I hope I was able to convey that the city remained in a healthy financial position at the

35:33end of 2024. Although there are challenges that lie ahead on many fronts we continue to monitor

35:38and manage risk, report on progress, provide our best advice to council as we work together towards

35:44sustainable city delivery for our community. Today I'm asking you to approve the consolidated

35:49financial statements in attachment one for port 2025-321. I'll now turn the presentation to

35:56MacBethick, partner at KB&G to discuss their findings from the 2024 audit. At the conclusion of his

36:02presentation both Matt and staff will be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.

36:11Hi Matt, it's it's Mayor Guthrie. How are you doing? I'm doing good thanks. How are you?

36:15Good. We can both see and hear you so thank you for joining us and as usual we'll let you walk us

36:21through our statements. Go right ahead. Perfect. Well, clerks share my presentation and then I can

36:27advance them. Yeah, I'm just going to pull it up there for you. Indicate them into advance.

36:48They're just taking a second here Matt. So sorry about that.

36:52There.

36:54Mayor Guthrie we have the presentation ready. We'll advance the slides for Mr. Bethick.

36:57You can just advise when that's when it's appropriate to advance.

37:01Yeah Matt, did you hear Stephen there indicate that whenever you need a slide to move forward

37:05just just say next slide and we're good to go. We'll do. Okay, so thank you for inviting me here

37:12this evening and thanks for the presentation from Tisha. I think she did a great job sort of

37:18identifying the highlights from the financial statements. Over the next few minutes I will

37:23walk through various components of our reporting from the audit to council. These items are a

37:31combination of required communications under the audit standards as well as items that we feel

37:37would be of interest to council. If I could advance probably three or four or maybe even five slides

37:45to page six of our report. Two more. Perfect. So here we are with the status update and

37:52recognizing that this report was prepared on the 5th of June so we are almost 20 days past that.

37:59At that time we were waiting for a number of things that have all been completed with respect

38:03to legal confirmations, consolidation and no tie out, and completion of our final quality control

38:09and review procedures. So those are all checked. At this point we just need to complete this process,

38:14have the statements approved by council, get the final management rep letter and we'll be in a position

38:19to issue our final audit opinion likely sometime this week. I'm happy to say that in the materials

38:27they draft an opinion is a clean audit opinion so there's no qualifications or modifications

38:33which is what you would expect. I can advance the next slide. If you recall from our planning

38:40meeting we did identify that every single audit in Canada does have to consider the risk that there

38:45may be an override of internal controls in the preparation of financial statements and what

38:51we call this is you know the risk of fraud in the audit and just to be clear we're talking about this

38:56risk from the perspective of how information would be intentionally manipulated to achieve some type

39:02of reporting purpose. Again this is not specific to the city this is something we must do for every

39:08single audit. We do go through a number of factors that we consider to see if there are any elevated

39:15or increased risks beyond the base that is required and I'm happy to say we have not found anything

39:20and we are required to have a specific response in terms of audit procedures to this risk and I'm

39:26also happy to say we have no findings to report in this matter. Next slide and over the next

39:33several slides we will talk about some of the significant reporting areas. So the first being

39:39post-employment benefits so these are a combination of WSIB benefits and other health and dental

39:46benefits that would typically be allowed to early retiree employees. These benefits do require the

39:54use of an actuary to help calculate them. We have used the work of that actuary and relied on

40:00their work. We've communicated with them. We have tested the assumptions to ensure they're reasonable

40:06and we ensured that the underlying data that they used to do their calculations was appropriate.

40:12Again no findings. Next slide please. Here we talk about the tangible capital assets which Tisha

40:19mentioned briefly in her report. Here we're looking at making sure that items of capital

40:23nature are appropriately capitalized to the statement of financial position and that the

40:28appropriate amortization expense is recorded. We also look at non-capital items that could be

40:35misconstrued to ensure that those were properly included as an expense. Again no findings to report.

40:42Next slide. The obligatory reserve fund revenue and deferred revenue. We're mostly talking here

40:50about development charges. I do know that development charges is a highly sensitive subject

40:56these days especially with your provincial legislation impacting what the city can do here.

41:01But as Tisha quite rightly mentioned the recognition of defer of development charge revenue in the

41:06statements is really about when you spend the money not when you collect the money and because

41:12there is this extra step that has to be taken in terms of when to show those items as revenue

41:17in the financial statements. It does require an elevated response from us and so to that effect

41:23we have looked at collections during the year we've tested a sample of those and then we have

41:27looked at where revenue was recognized ensured that it was spent on growth related expenditures

41:33in accordance with the various DC studies. Again no findings. Next slide please. You'll recall from

41:41previous meetings we did talk about the liability for contaminated sites that the city holds in its

41:47financial statements. That balance went from 24 million to 26 million and recalling that this is

41:52an amount that is to be paid well into the future for contamination that currently exists on city

41:58properties for which you have either a legal responsibility to remunate or you have accepted

42:04responsibility for that. We did look retrospectively at that to make sure that the expenses that were

42:10encouraged during the year were in relation to those sites as well as look to see if there are any

42:16changes and make sure things were consistent. Again no findings. Next slide. For taxation and

42:24user charges the two main drivers of revenues so here we take what we refer to as an analytical

42:30approach by coming up with an independent expectation of what those items should be based on

42:38property values tax rates user fee rates historical volumes population growth a variety of factors.

42:48Again these all checked out no findings. The next slide goes through our approach to payroll and

42:56operating expenses. Next slide please. And in here we are from a payroll perspective we're doing a lot

43:04of what we refer to as full-time equivalent analysis so we do detailed testing of headcounts by

43:12department and by category look at how those change look at changes to collective agreements

43:19and how those would impact payroll expenses for the year as well as look at the year-end

43:23accruals and then for operating expenses we're testing a sample of expenses that are incurred

43:28during the year so that underlying contracts or invoices ensure that they're reported appropriately.

43:33Again no findings. On the next slide we just summarize some of the content that Tisha mentioned

43:41with respect to new accounting standards no issues or concerns over how those were adopted.

43:46If I could scroll down three more slides to page 17. And while there are very few words on this

43:55slide I want to sort of highlight one thing so we do not have we do not have any identified

44:02corrections or uncorrected amounts in the financial statements and what that means and I might have

44:07said this before is that means that the statements that were produced here today were based on the

44:12accounts that were given to us and we did not require any adjustments to those in order for

44:18those to be prepared in their final form which speaks to how clean the records are. Now we're

44:23only auditing the year-end financial statements so our communication only goes with those but I

44:29think there's a secondary point that council can take from this given that you know the information

44:34we got was clean that adds some credibility to information that's presented throughout the year

44:40as well because it's coming from the same system. Now it might be for a different purpose or what

44:44have you but there's this indicates a level of confidence in the underlying financial reporting

44:51system so this is a very very good thing. On the next slide again we communicate again a lot of

44:58words here the crux of the matter is we did not identify any significant control deficiencies

45:05again a very very good thing. And on the the next page in the final comment that I'll make

45:12you know in terms of inequality you know we you know take a variety of steps to ensure

45:18we do produce a quality audit but one of the key indicators to inequality is the timeliness and

45:24quality of the preparation by staff and I would have to say this was excellent and under both counts

45:30and I think Tisha and Shanna and the rest of their team should be acknowledged for the very very

45:36hard work that they did in both needing those deadlines and ensuring things were in very very

45:41good order so I want to thank them for that. The rest of our presentation consists of some

45:46appendices which I won't look into in detail I can turn the meeting back over to the chair

45:52for questions and comments. Thank you very much I appreciate it. As usual it's like every year I

46:02say the same thing to you thank you very much we appreciate it. Let me see is there any questions?

46:09Wow no questions which means you've done a great job and the great job you did is because of our

46:15staff doing a great job so thank you very much Matt we'll say goodbye to you then we appreciate you.

46:22Well I'll stick around for the motion if that's okay. I guess I'm just kidding yeah for sure that's

46:27totally fine. How about questions to our staff though and that's before no okay can I have someone

46:34maybe the chair of audit should move the motion would that be okay? Councillor Goller

46:39and how about the former chair of audit? Councillor Allt would you be willing to second?

46:43All right perfect. There's nothing further I'll call the vote then okay thank you again for all

46:50the work is there anyone against? Nobody at all so that's unanimous thank you very much Matt

46:58there's your motion for you you can go now he's already gone that's good all right with that

47:06we have the bylaws but I think what we'll do is we'll move in camera first take care of that and

47:12then we'll come back out and do the bylaws at the at the end okay so again is there any disclosure

47:18of pecuniary interest any oh sorry go ahead. Yeah Mr. Mayor we have the committee in board

47:24vacancies as a result of the board six vacancy. Sorry sorry I jumped ahead my apologies we'll do

47:30the committee and board vacancy selection now before we move into closed my apologies.