Special Council Meeting - Budget

9:35All right. Good morning everybody.

9:37Like to call the meeting to order. It's November the 7th 2023. It's just after 9 a.m

9:43This is a special council meeting

9:46and it is purely focused on the budget that is in front of us and

9:53When I say the word budget

9:56It is the multi-year budget the 2024 to 2027 so thank you for everyone arriving and

10:03being ready to go and so I will start I will start by asking everyone to

10:10Please rise if you're able as we have our national anthem. Thank you and just to continue a moment of silent reflection

11:53Great. Thank you and for our indigenous territorial acknowledgement as we gather

11:58Let us take time to reflect on our privilege to live and work in Guelph a city built over rich indigenous histories

12:04We're guests here and we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for this land the people who live here today

12:11And the generations to come

12:13For actions today can move us towards reconciliation. We should take pause and make those decisions with intention and gratitude

12:21This place we call Guelph has served as traditional lands and a place of refuge for many peoples over time, but more specifically

12:28The Anana Wanrech and the Haudenosaunee

12:31This land is held as the treaty lands and territory with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and

12:37Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Haudenosaunee track and as part of a long established traditional hunting grounds for the six nations of the Grand River

12:46Many First Nations anyway, may see people today who have come from across Turtle Island call Guelph home today

12:54Sorry, disclosure of pecuniary interest or any general nature thereof for the item in front of us today

13:00Okay

13:02Not hearing and seeing anything there. I'll consider that matter closed

13:07And

13:09We have no regrets today. I must say I think it's a miracle

13:14We have almost everybody in chambers 12 and chambers pretty great. So, hope nice to see everybody here and

13:24We'll just kick off with the presentation of Guelph's

13:292024 to 2027 multi-year budget and

13:34It starts with me

13:37Lucky everybody

13:39So my presentation today is is

13:44Going to be just me setting the stage. I've got no notes in front of me here

13:49Because I've been obviously well briefed about what the numbers and everything are

13:55previous to staff releasing them

13:58Everybody on Friday and when I say everybody I don't mean just obviously us but the whole community and maybe you've heard from some people already

14:05I know I certainly have heard from many people since Friday

14:10the budget as we know is real at this point is broken into three separate parts and

14:16those parts are

14:18Important for us to communicate and that's why I'm starting with those three parts

14:24That doesn't mean we can't do work around all of them or ask questions around all of them

14:28But it is presented in three parts

14:30the first is what I'm calling is the city controllable portion and

14:35That is something that we as a council do have direct jurisdiction

14:39Oversight on and might I add that probably the biggest influence on that portion?

14:45The second portion is what is what's called outside boards or outside?

14:50agencies and

14:51Those are things that we do not have direct oversight on could we have a little bit of influence?

14:56Can we ask questions around those? Yes, of course

14:59but we don't have direct oversight on those things and just for the public listening right now those are things like

15:06the police the library the downtown wealth business association

15:12public health the county social services

15:16the long-term care

15:18Elliott the GRCA

15:21Pretty sure I hit them all off there

15:24So those again are things that we do not have direct oversight or control on and

15:30Then the last piece which is new this year, but I would suggest that it's it's

15:36Been a long time known that this might be coming which is a separate part which is I'm coining as the pill

15:44Which is the provincial impacts local levy?

15:47And the provincial impacts local levy is combined with three of parts itself

15:54And the way I remember it for maybe those that want to try to remember it as well. There's three H's so the first H is

16:02hospital

16:03council the last term made a commitment of

16:074.5 million dollars, I believe

16:10to give

16:12$750,000 a year over a six-year period as a dedicated amount to

16:17our hospital to help with renovations and expansions

16:21specifically for a new

16:25intensive care nursery

16:28for a

16:30New emergency room and from new mental health beds

16:35so that commitment is ongoing and

16:39And so that is in

16:41included within the pill the second H is

16:45homelessness and

16:47Addressing homelessness if I could call it that

16:51You'll hear later from our staff in regards to really what the county came and presented to council in September

17:00with a heads-up moment that

17:03Just to try to continue to handle the capacity issues the programs and to help people in need

17:09The county's good in need between four to five million dollars more a year

17:14Okay, and the third and final H within the pill is housing and housing is

17:22due to provincial

17:24legislation that has come down

17:27that has

17:29Not only taken away funds for infrastructure through development charges, but has also

17:36earmarked

17:37Discounts that are now legislated that we have to back date on for discounts for development charges

17:43Also the taking away of development charges that would have funded studies to also help with master planning and things that we need all around housing

17:52So the three parts we have the controllable

17:56we have the uncontrollable somewhat and

18:00We have the pill are combining to what's tabled as a 10.3 ish

18:06percentage point

18:09Budget increase and I just want to say the final couple of things then I'm almost there

18:14And thank you for allowing me to speak here to kind of set the table is

18:19And

18:20Tara I'm just looking at you to make sure you nod in agreement with me as I say what I'm about to say

18:25This is 10.3 percent is not the tax increase

18:3010.3 is the budget increase am I right on that?

18:36Tara

18:39That's the way it's always been presented in the past. It's what I'm sure no the 10.3 is that is the tax levy impact

18:46That's what I thought too. Okay. I had a couple questions about that yesterday

18:49And and so I was accidentally told something different, but okay good to get that out in the open

18:55So it is that I can see a lot of counselors going oh

18:58So it is the tax. This is kind of new so it is the tax the tax impact

19:06So that leaves me with my final

19:08Final commentary which is I

19:12Have said all along in this journey of how this new budget is coming

19:17That we are going to need 13 heads to try to figure this out

19:22And when I I want to define what is this figure this out?

19:26What does this mean? Well to me it is solely focused about affordability and

19:33I mean we we have an over 10% impact

19:37The largest being presented to us

19:41We have to the 13 of us have to row together in this boat to try to figure out as best as we can

19:49About affordability for our community in regards to this issue

19:52That's what I'm focused on and I need the other 12 heads in this room and online

19:58over the next few weeks to try to figure out how we can really focus on that issue and

20:04So I know that that would help I think that would very much help our community out during this during this time

20:12Within the constraints that I just laid out though within the constraints. I just laid out of the three parts. It's very difficult

20:18So we have a big we have a big path in front of us here

20:22and with that I do want to

20:25Turn it over to staff before I do that. I do want to thank staff because

20:30It has been months of them working up until this very moment and

20:35They have worked very very hard

20:38To get us even to this moment and even with these numbers

20:42They have worked very very hard and I cannot be lost at all and many of our staff many

20:50majority

20:51They are 12 citizens too

20:53They they are they are they are feeling this too and so the work that they're doing is because they are balancing

21:01What they believe is their best professional advice to us to have a budget that includes

21:09value

21:10service delivery

21:13investment in growth

21:15The needs of our community along with that affordability part two and

21:20So our staff have not come into this, you know frivolously at all

21:26And at a last minute to try to throw something together. This is months. This is months in the making

21:32Okay

21:33So today we as a council are gonna get our first real deep dive into the presentation

21:40Of the how and the why and the what behind it and I hope that our citizens also

21:48Maybe are joining along now or we can at least send this link to them later because I think from an educational point of view

21:54This presentation is important for the people to understand what what it means in this budget

22:00And then we can try to have some good conversation about what what can we do from here?

22:07Because the 29th is coming up sooner every single day, so

22:13Yeah with that I thank you council and to the community for letting me sort of set the stage

22:17And I will turn it over to our CAO

22:21Scott Stewart and thank you to all the staff that are here and I know that there's like a nerve center or something

22:27several rooms with people all

22:30Watching probably online me talking about them right now

22:33So I know there's staff amongst everywhere all ready to jump in and answer questions too

22:38So I want to thank all the other staff that are standing by as well. All right. That's it for me

22:44Thank you very much. I'll turn it over to Scott

22:46Thank you very much mayor Guthrie and good morning members of council

22:52And thank you for that setup

22:53But what a better place is there a start our budget story than with what it takes to keep the city going day in and day out

23:00You're a little bit about that from their gutery

23:03Whether it's our residents or businesses or visitors to Guelph whether they realize it

23:08There are core services delivered daily that contribute significantly to the quality of life in our Guelph community has come to expect

23:16When we ask the question, how do we build community these services make up Guelph's foundation?

23:21These are the services that turn a place into a home and go off into a community

23:27Maintaining current service levels mean ensuring means ensuring our community is healthy and safe

23:32Whether that's paramedic or fire services

23:35Or the delivery of clean water the recovery of wastewater to homes and businesses. It means caring for our environment

23:42It means caring for the infrastructure and facilities that we already have and the community relies upon each and every single day

23:51In September of 2023 standard and poor stated that for Canadian municipalities

23:55We expect that they'll be higher than typical tax increases

23:59And they will likely continue in the next two years in response to elevated inflation on both operating and capital costs

24:07And we all know it costs more today to buy groceries or fill that tank

24:11Than it did last year and the city experiences this too with the products we much purchased to provide the services we deliver

24:18In Guelph or 2024 to 27th multi-year budget

24:22We focused on investments that support our core work and that meet our community's needs

24:28Finding way to mitigate tax impacts while ensuring we keep delivering services as expected has been a top priority

24:37Housing of course is a major influence in Guelph's first four-year budget and we know we need more housing in Guelph

24:44We have committed to 18,000 homes through the interior of the housing pledge by 2031

24:49And as a city we have a role to play in all aspects of the housing continuum

24:54Albeit we're primarily responsible for facilitating housing supply mainly in the private market by regulating land use and

25:01Building standards through policies and incentives to make development possible

25:06And as you are aware the city doesn't build housing and as noted in the housing pledge

25:11We can't provide the provincial or the provinces mandate at housing for target for Guelph alone

25:17While the responsibility for delivering delivery of homelessness and housing stability service lies with the county Wellington

25:24There's increase in pressure on the city to consider how to respond to the critical issues related to the homelessness

25:31issues in our community

25:33So building housing enabling infrastructure though doesn't build community

25:39Investment in the services that make communities great is just as important things like

25:44Excuse me the South End Community Center

25:47Like our parks and trails snow plowing other services that are municipalities responsibility to deliver core businesses might be another way to describe that

25:57There are real budgetary impacts to our municipalities enabling growth and the services required to support it

26:04Given the pressures municipalities are facing provincially reduce revenue tools and high inflation

26:10We're not permitted to run our deficit and not suggesting we should but the province has placed bureaucratic and budgetary handcuffs on municipalities across Ontario

26:19Removing critical revenue streams while simultaneously

26:22mandating us to do more

26:25It's a head shaker, but it's our current reality and of course over the course of our presentation

26:31We want to keep in mind a very few important very a few very important points

26:35We've been asked to do even more with even less

26:38Local tax and rate payers should not and likely cannot bear the cost of social services health care and discounts for developers

26:45We need a new financial deal

26:47This budget includes investments for enabling housing all kinds of housing

26:53No matter the type or where it falls on the housing continuum

26:56We are actively working to make changes to enable growth in our community and accelerated rate

27:01And this includes advancing what is within our control in the housing pledge

27:06investments to expedite development and build and permit approvals expediting capital infrastructure projects to create

27:13Water wastewater and stormwater capacity for housing by making sure we have

27:19designers building inspectors and project managers. We've also hired recently

27:24Development liaisons who will work to improve city relationships with the development community and of course with partner and house and agencies

27:31To advance our housing affordability strategy

27:34When we talk about building community this includes growth enable an infrastructure like the pipes to bring clean safe water to residents and businesses

27:43And when it when that tap is turned on and again, this is sometimes the stuff that we take for granted

27:49Because it's a core business for us, and I think that's part of our reflection in this budget. What are core businesses for us and what are not?

27:57The of course, it's not just the tap water that comes in

28:01It's the pipes and then the sewers that carry the wastewater away from homes after the toilet is flushed or dishes are washed

28:07It includes the water and wastewater treatment plants that clean that sewage and return it back to the environment

28:14It's the stormwater catch basins that prevent flooding and rain and snow events and the roads that carry people and goods

28:20For businesses each and every day

28:23These are the core services that need to be in place before any homes can be built and many of these growth enabling projects of the

28:30Responsibility of the city's infrastructure development and enterprise service area to facilitate and complete

28:36So the capital budget includes significant investments into these prehousing

28:42Services prioritizing the intensification

28:46The capital budget itself

28:48Is as you would know is made up of growth areas and existing areas and that's a that's been a clear focus on us with our constrained

28:57financial resources

28:59That means as you will have noticed already and as you move make your way through the budget books

29:03It's a clear focus on the downtown or Guelph innovation district while clear malty makes its way through various appeals

29:10And while the details of front-end and agreements to finance that area worked out

29:14So we're also placing responsibilities on the development community

29:18There is a way to front-end these services that the development community perhaps pays for them and traditionally

29:24That's not being a Guelph approach. It's certainly been approached for others, but it's not being approached for us

29:28We're very much interested in that and of course we're hoping that everything moves through the appeals process

29:35January ish now we're not completely holding our breath

29:38But there is some movement on those files and you've heard that before so that there is good news in there and

29:42Perhaps will be good news with some of that front-end and agreements that we've agreed to share with some of some of the development community

29:49Not all in the Clermont Bay area

29:50And I'll think I'll think the finance staff that are going to lead that for us in advance

29:56But we feel it's important to set the stage early today to be clear

29:59We had to prioritize certain investments earlier while others needed to pause to create

30:04fiscal capacity and support greater affordability for tax and ratepayers and

30:10And that's a key for us and it is a 10.3 percent tax levy here and we're not toned after that

30:16We're not toned after the affordability issues in our community. We're not toned deaf

30:21That some can't afford it and we're not toned deaf that you've been put into a heck of a spot as well in terms of how do we deal with

30:28development with that that revenue

30:30Big revenue gap so hopefully

30:33You'll hear from us today and this journey begins with you

30:37It needs to be very clear from our perspective that you understand completely what's in the budget

30:41What's not in the budget what has been removed?

30:44especially on the capital site

30:46over the next four years if not the next ten years and

30:50I'm going to rephrase that not removed refer somewhere else

30:54So there isn't anything being taken out and dropped that you won't be aware of but there is deferrals because we can't do everything all at once

31:00And that's a dilemma for us. You'll see the the percent of 2% on the operate from capital

31:06That's a significant change for us just to maintain that to control that and because you know when we build facilities

31:13You have to operate facilities and it's a dilemma for us

31:16But you can't run these things and not have new communities without them and on top of that

31:21We've got our existing community dilemma

31:23So we've got a bit of a two for here where we've got a housing crisis, of course

31:27But we've also got an infrastructure crisis our existing infrastructure. That's problematic for us

31:33We've made great strides thanks to your leadership and and the staff teams that have tackled this over the last

31:39I'd say five to six years really focused

31:42It's but it's still a double whammy for us as we move through what's going to be in front of you today

31:47so again, just a reminder that

31:51People want to live in Guelph because we built thoughtful well-planned

31:54Communities the service offers to make Guelph a great place to live work and play our

32:00Founding this budget balanced with other pressures we face the strat plan

32:04Of course there's a north star for building these complete communities and this budget

32:08Sets the pace for how fast we can achieve these goals and we've said that a lot during the strategic planning exercise

32:14The budget is now the gas pedal on moving things forward

32:18Pacing capacity aside the pace of how we deliver things is in our hands

32:23Collectively and so with that talking of good hands

32:26I'll invite DCO lead to start us through the strategic planning journey to describe the value being created for our community through the multi-year budget

32:33Trevor

32:34Good morning mayor Guthrie members of council the public and our media folks who are here for with us for the day

32:46I'd also like to thank you mayor Guthrie and CEO Stewart for setting the stage for the rest of today's presentation in July

32:52Council approve the future Guelph strategic plan for 2024 to 2027

32:57Staff committed to presenting Guelph's multi-year budget in alignment with the investments that advance these strategic initiatives

33:04We'll start this part of the presentation off by sharing with you the value that this budget is providing in supporting our core work here at the city

33:11The work in foundations is critical and equips us with the support needed to provide excellent service and good governance

33:17It's where we're improving the tools and resources needed to achieve success under the other three themes

33:24Being an employer of choice means investing to support our people resources in our growing city

33:29Investing in a recruiting specialist will strengthen our ability to attract top talent to advance our city's goals and objectives

33:37But attracting new employees is only half of the equation

33:40Retaining staff once they get here must also be a consideration

33:44This means investments in labor relations and customer service

33:48abilities and occupational health and compensation policies

33:52These investments will ensure we can maintain pace with city growth and continue to provide a solid foundation

33:58To attract the right people at the right time

34:01Leading with accountability means advancing the city's performance culture

34:06This includes investments in it infrastructure that supports enterprise reporting

34:10Dashboards and furthering our focus on key performance indicators

34:15Strategic plan performance measurement strengthens data-driven decision making

34:20It also requires investments that support the advisory committees of council to include appropriate board and committee support

34:26From the clerk's office. They will ensure compliance with recent changes to legislative frameworks

34:32Governing local boards maintaining the existing hybrid meeting service level offered to the public

34:37And supporting members of council and staff at city council meetings. This was highlighted at yesterday's committee of the whole meeting

34:45Maintaining the city's healthy financial position requires investment in a utility rate structure study and resources to support

34:53The increasing size and complexity of the city's financial requirements

34:57Including the addition of front end development charge debt financing

35:01It also makes a priority the city's asset management and infrastructure renewal investment

35:07Ensuring we take care of the assets to mitigate financial and service continuity risk

35:12Providing excellent customer service means we must invest in point of sale and pay solutions support

35:18It means we must develop online digital services and simplify payment processes across the organization

35:24Which will ultimately result in a streamlined user experience for the community

35:29Providing excellent services also means investing in the development of a customer focused service design framework and team

35:36To govern changes to the public facing city services to achieve the goals outlined in the service simplified strategy

35:44Critical investments into information technology aim to provide the ability to advance the city's digital infrastructure

35:51Highlights of this investment include

35:54In implementation of the customer's relationship management strategy

35:58enhanced cybersecurity programs of work

36:01And integration platforms across the organization to deliver a comprehensive enterprise resource planning system

36:08This theme also prioritizes equity diversity

36:12inclusion and accessibility through investment in new policy resources

36:17Growth in the resources to maintain compliance with accessibility standards and investment

36:22In equitable access to public transit through the affordable bus pass

36:28As a part of the critical prioritization work to reduce city control tax impacts in the gwelff's 2024 to 2027

36:36multi-year budget we have

36:39Delayed work on the human resources led people and culture plan and corporate learning and development program

36:44We've delayed service improvement initiatives and the hiring of a change management specialist

36:50We've delayed important it system in for improvements

36:54Including the human capital management suite customer relationship management system

36:59identity and access management and electronic document management systems and we've eliminated the expanded capacity of our continuous improvement office

37:10Many infrastructure renewal and facility projects were descoped and deferred

37:14This means extending asset replacement timelines often beyond their useful life

37:20Due to pressures in the infrastructure renewal reserve fund related to major aging facility projects occurring at the same time

37:28As the downtown revitalization program

37:30These deferrals and descoping have increased the city's risk of failure as an asset's useful life is extended beyond when replacement should have occurred

37:40Staff is comfortable that the level of risk within the capital budget is manageable however

37:44But we would not be able to support further reductions to infrastructure renewal funding

37:50Now I'd like to welcome dco. Clock bush to share more

37:58Thank you. Mr. Lee and good morning everyone

38:02Next i'm going to walk you through how our budget aligns with and works to advance the city building theme in our strategic plan

38:10City building focuses on growth and all the supporting elements needed to make gwelff a more livable city

38:17Improving housing supply requires investing in the advancement of development applications that support affordable housing

38:24And maintaining shortened development application and building permit approval timelines

38:28Considering anticipated increases in service demand

38:33Investments in it systems is also foundational to unlocking additional building and licensing functionality

38:39This initiative also includes addressing the growth revenue gaps created with bill 23 at the same time the city is prioritizing investment

38:47In housing enabled infrastructure in the downtown and the gwelff innovation district

38:52Staff have dedicated significant time this year with council leading special focused work

38:58On the city's role in the housing pledge and earlier comments from cao steward emphasize the importance of housing in this budget

39:05The province recently announced new annual targets for housing starts in each community

39:09Staff is working on understanding what this means for gwelff

39:12Trying to get clarification on how this will be measured. Will it be by building permits issued?

39:18Or by housing starts locally?

39:20The metric is important for us as it changes the results quite significantly

39:25We are happy to report that the city is progressing towards meeting the provincial target in 2023 using building permit data

39:32Demonstrating the value in the predictive position hires to quicken development application reviews and to build infrastructure

39:40But we are worried that with prevailing high interest rates building permits may slow in 2024

39:45Putting at risk our second year of funding

39:49The city has built flexibility into the budget for the staff resources needed to meet accelerated housing impacts in 2024 and beyond

39:56using a gapping

39:58Using a gapping

40:00strategy to phase in the impacts of these roles over the four years. These

40:04roles will not be hired unless the building and planning volume

40:08substantiate these investments. To grow and care for our community spaces and

40:15places, we are investing in culture and recreation programs that allow the city

40:19to keep pace with growth, create vibrant spaces through culture for our

40:23community and in support the implementation of the Parks and

40:27Recreation Master Plan. And in terms of public space, this budget includes

40:32investment to support the opening of the New South End Community Center and

40:36the Baker District Library in 2026, which I think you'll all agree are too much

40:41needed facilities that our community has been waiting on for many, many years. As

40:47well with the approval of the city's culture plan just last month, this budget

40:51also includes a modest investment of $50,000 starting in 2025 for public art,

40:56as well as $905,000 for the city's bicentennial celebration, which will

41:02acknowledge Guelph's 200th year as a city. This cost is being funded from

41:07reserves and will be spread over three years starting in 2025 and continuing

41:11through 2027, which is of course the year of that celebration. This budget also

41:17sees investments in parks and trails with these continuing to be a priority for

41:22us, helping to deliver on the actions from the master plan. Many in the

41:26community can tell us how long the wait list can be if you need the forestry

41:32team to respond to an issue regarding a city owned tree. And so we've included

41:36Front Facing Parks team resourcing to address these wait times. One investment

41:42that I'm really proud to share is a way that we are addressing the challenges to

41:46recruit seasonal part time summer and winter maintenance staff. So at a net zero

41:51cost, we are recommending the reallocation of part time funds into

41:55permanent positions that will have dual job description of supporting both

41:59community park and road maintenance all year round, regardless of the season.

42:05This really is a win for us for those looking for permanent employment. And

42:09for us, it offers the flexibility to respond to weather cycles, regardless of

42:14in which month mother nature decides the snow is going to start. The future

42:20Guelph strategic plan also aims to make it easier to get around. Investment in

42:24transit spurred by the trilateral investing in Canada infrastructure

42:29program grants, also referred to as ICIP funding is a major investment through

42:35the four years of this budget. These investments are guided by the Guelph

42:39transit future ready action plan, which increases overall transit ridership

42:44through the transit route review. This plan makes the transit experience better

42:49for current and future riders by investing in better shelters, increasing

42:53frequency on key date on key routes and improving digital services to buy passes

42:59and have current up to date route information at a rider's fingertips.

43:03In 2023, as you know, council also passed a new free structure that creates

43:07financial incentives to ride our buses more frequently, overall bettering the

43:12sustainability of our transit service. With the 10 year plan, we also want to

43:17add new routes enabling us to move from a hub and spoke style system to a full

43:22coverage grid system. We are making Guelph transit a more reliable option for

43:27getting around our city. However, this is a significant investment and even with

43:34the capital grant funding, there are considerable budgetary impacts to

43:39improving the transit system. So just wanting to make sure that we're open

43:44and transparent, this budget has slowed down the original plan that was approved

43:49by council because of our affordability concerns delaying the 10 year plan into

43:54more of a 13 to 15 year plan. But even so, council will see $9 million over the

44:00next four years in impacts from capital investment for this plan. In total, in

44:06the 10 year capital budget, including the transit operations facility required for

44:11this growing system and a facility that can support bus electrification, the

44:16total capital budget includes $331 million for transit and related ICIP

44:21projects, in addition to the $40.9 million that was already approved in

44:26prior year budgets. And in addition to transit, there are investments totaling

44:31over $275 million that will advance movement across the city by improving

44:37accessibility, including the implementation of the cycling master plan,

44:42sidewalk construction and accessibility improvements, multi use paths and the

44:46downtown parking master plan. So as Mr. Lee mentioned earlier, significant work

44:52was undertaken to reduce city controlled tax impacts in this multi year budget.

44:58In all cases, the reductions and delays mean extending council approved

45:02plans and in some cases changing service level expectations. So in the city

45:08building category, this includes delayed work on infrastructure supporting

45:13growth like Victoria Road widening sewer and water main replacement, wastewater

45:18master plan and the Watson and exhibition road reconstruction reconstruction,

45:23reduced plans for four lanes down to two on York Road, removed a community

45:28relations and development advisor role, removed a cultural heritage action

45:32plan staff resource, removed certain technical services enhancements within

45:37the infrastructure development support teams, delayed additional resourcing for

45:41trail technician, parks cleaner, operations coordinator and sports equipment

45:47operator, delayed park infrastructure replacement and upgrades, recreation

45:52trails renewal, the exhibition park waiting pool replacement, playground

45:57equipment replacements and trail sports fields and courts replacements and

46:01upgrades, removed an emerging transportation policy analyst role and

46:07delayed transit route review years four to seven, the terminal upgrades and

46:11expansion. There is also risk of additional pressures on the budget if the

46:16MTO Highway seven improvements are completed earlier than anticipated or

46:20communicated by the province. And I will now hand the floor over to DC A O

46:25Holmes. Thank you, Ms. Click Bush and good morning everybody. So I want to talk

46:33to you now about how the budget aligns with the environment theme within the

46:37strategic plan and how the budget supports this work. The work within this

46:42theme is meant to empower us and the community to help fight and adapt to

46:46climate change. Being a leader in climate action requires investments that are

46:52focused on our corporate goal of energy conservation and reduction of

46:56greenhouse gases. One of the most significant investments in this budget

47:00towards this goal is the electrification of the corporate fleet. Most

47:04notably our bus fleet with the assistance of the ISAP funding just

47:08discussed by DC A O Clack Bush. On average, the city is replacing seven diesel

47:13buses with electric buses a year, plus the new buses needed for the improved

47:18transit system. To meet the city's portion of greenhouse gas emission

47:23reduction as part of our race zero goals. However, the investment is needed in

47:27larger projects such as the Guelph transit and fleet facility. This project

47:32is being reviewed for scope as the budget required to implement even with

47:36ice ISAP funding is too much for the city to contemplate on its original

47:40timeline. We continue to move forward with the goal of electrifying our fleet,

47:45but it will be challenging to meet the early front ended greenhouse gas

47:49emission reduction requirement of race to zero by 2030. In addition to transit,

47:56our corporate facility team is implementing energy efficient efficiency

47:59into all renewal projects, not only improving our carbon footprint, but

48:03also reducing utility operating costs. And it doesn't stop there. Our corporate

48:09fleet team is also focused on the rest of the city fleet, right sizing our

48:14vehicles for intended purpose, replacing vehicles with hybrid or electric

48:18where possible and improving processes for sharing vehicles between

48:22departments to reduce leasing costs. This budget supports the environment in a

48:27big way. Investing in climate change is a critical objective of our strategic

48:31plan. We are recommending continued investment in this area and the work of

48:37staff is getting real results. As we saw last night, I'm proud to announce that

48:41the city has become ISO 50,001 certified. And this is such a great

48:46achievement achievement and shows our dedication to internal process and

48:49procedure improvements to measure our climate change efforts. Climate action

48:56also means the advancement of the city's urban forest mass management plan

49:00through the cities one canopy tree planting strategy to increase wells,

49:04tree canopy, we plan to we plan to plant an additional 3.6 million trees

49:10covering an area of 1492 hectares to achieve 40% tree canopy covered by

49:172017. Trees don't just help air quality, but they also create shade and

49:22reduce temperatures for our residents improving mental health and overall

49:26well being. Trees are so important to our climate adaptation goals to helping

49:31to mitigate climate impacts on our roads and outdoor structures leading to

49:35longer, useful lives and reduced costs. We can't talk about trees without

49:40broadening our lens to the continued investment in the implementation of the

49:43natural heritage action plan to protect, maintain and enhance Guelph's

49:48rivers, forests, biodiversity and habitats as Guelph grows. Stormwater is

49:55another significant climate action investment in this budget, a key service

50:00that prevents flooding in our community. With increasingly more frequent extreme

50:05weather events, it serves to emphasize how important it is to move this function

50:09to a utility rate model like water and wastewater seven years ago. At that time,

50:14staff identified how underfunded these assets were and that dedicated funding

50:19was needed before we got to that critical point. Fees have been held at the

50:2360 cent increase annually for the first, through the first plan. However, with the

50:29approval of the updated stormwater master plan in 2023, especially in the face of

50:34high inflation and increasingly more severe weather events, council will see

50:38this rate increase in 2014 to $1.20 from 60 cents. We cannot afford to address,

50:46we cannot afford not to address this aging asset problem. This funding is going

50:53towards approximately $22 million in capital project investments over four

50:57years that advanced stormwater infrastructure improvements, including

51:00work on the bullfrog stormwater facility, replacement and upsizing of storm

51:05sewers as part of the exhibition area reconstruction to alleviate localized

51:09stormwater management capacity constraints, as well as pond rehabilitation and

51:14condition assessments. The second major objective of the environment theme is

51:20empowering the community to create a sustainable city. The goal of Race to

51:24Zero hinges on the community's ability to reduce its carbon usage. The city, as a

51:29corporation, is only 3% of the overall targeted reduction. This budget includes

51:34implementation of the Guelph-Greener Homes program and other community

51:38advocacy programs and initiatives. And finally, we cannot talk about a

51:43sustainable city without protecting Guelph's drinking water through investments

51:47and groundwater protection projects, ensuring that the city can meet and

51:51maintain the needs of the current community and extend city assets through

51:55education and awareness events. The city's water system is undergoing major

52:01infrastructure renewal, including the primary pipeline that brings groundwater

52:05into the city for our residents. This and many other projects, like the

52:09replacement of the underground pipes in the downtown, are financially

52:12significant and operationally critical. This is happening at the same time that

52:17we are looking ahead and growing the services to ensure sustainability in the

52:21future, too. So clean, safe, sustainable water is a focus in this budget that we

52:27cannot afford not to prioritize. Under the environment theme, staff also had to

52:35make some reductions for affordability purposes. These include removal of the

52:43climate change research analyst role, removal of the dedicated single-use

52:48plastics bylaw officer, despite council approval, meaning that this bylaw will be

52:52enforced by the current bylaw team complement. Remove the zero-waste

52:58plan, the EECO lab program advisor, delayed the solid waste master plan

53:04recommendations assessment and policy development, and the solid waste master

53:08plan environmental programs implementation. Removal of the new 100RE project

53:14manager, delaying of the electric bus charging and central station bus

53:20charging, delay of the water resource recovery center energy efficiency

53:27improvement, delay of stormwater under private property work, stormwater

53:32management facility retrofits, stormwater education and market transformation,

53:37the industrial avenue sewer and end of pipe facility, and delayed watershed

53:43planning. Also delayed is the additional resource for the natural stewardship

53:48area operations. So many of these tough decisions have been put forward here to

53:53help manage the affordability for taxpayers, which means that we will not

53:56be able to meet our short-term race to zero goals. The people and economy theme

54:04supports our community's well-being and helps our local economy flourish.

54:09Over the next few slides, I'll walk you through how the budget supports and

54:13advances this important theme from Future Guelph. Key investments are needed to

54:19grow Guelph's economy. These investments include hiring an economic development

54:24coordinator in 2027 that will support the development of new programs and

54:28partnerships for workforce development and to increase engagement with local

54:32businesses. We also must invest in resourcing compliance and performance

54:37talent to execute the circular economy framework as well as capital

54:41investments of approximately 650,000 over the four-year period in solid waste

54:46assessment, studies, policy development and implementation. To make a downtown

54:52vibrant for everyone, we will invest in over $44 million in capital work

54:57related to the full corridor reconstruction of Windham Street North

55:01and Wellington Road, as well as the Macdonnell Bridge and Allen Structure

55:05modifications. The total 10-year capital budget for the downtown renewal program

55:09is over $200 million, and more information about the whole plan will be

55:13brought to council earlier next year and can be found in the links as part of

55:18the capital budget section in the budget package. This is an impactful,

55:22once-in-a-lifetime investment in the downtown that will create a vibrant

55:26downtown we envision for the future. The budget also includes resources for

55:32waste collection in the downtown and exploring alternatives to landfills by

55:37diversifying disposal practices as well as investments for ongoing support for

55:4210-seat towards maintenance and minor repairs of the Guelph Farmers Market.

55:47As a follow-up to the request at the October 17th special council meeting

55:50regarding welcoming streets, a downtown program that enhances the well-being of

55:55those struggling with homelessness in the downtown. Staff worked with the Guelph

55:59Community Health Centre and can confirm that to grow the program by an

56:03additional 3.5 staff to provide better coverage, the community benefit

56:08agreement would need to be increased by an additional $350,000. At this point,

56:14the 2024 base budget for welcoming streets initiative remains at the current

56:18level of $206,550 and has not been increased to accommodate this

56:25request. To support community well-being, we plan to address increase in

56:33call volumes for Guelph Wellington paramedic services by hiring eight

56:37paramedics in each of 2024 and 2026, an additional four paramedics in 2027.

56:44In addition, an investment of $11 million in capital projects over the course of

56:49the four-year budget will support the replacement of the existing least

56:53paramedic station on Elmira Road, which no longer meets the needs of the

56:56department due to station location and site logistics resulting in poor response

57:01times. Discussions are ongoing with the County of Wellington for getting

57:06station renewals started in those areas. As you recall, from the June meeting

57:12where staff put in a great effort to have that joint meeting between the

57:15city and county councillors to demonstrate some of the difficult

57:18working conditions of our paramedics and some of the county's local

57:22municipalities. We continue to provide the requested information to help the

57:26county with its capital budget planning and hope that they will see the

57:29benefit and purpose-built stations and leasing them back to the city. However,

57:35as the service provider, the city may look to initiating change in those

57:38stations more directly by building stations ourselves or in collaboration

57:42with another developer. We also plan to invest in additional ambulances and

57:48non-transport response vehicles to meet the growing demands, including the

57:53operating requirements to staff those vehicles. In partnership with Guelph

57:57Police Services, the Guelph Fire's budget includes a $1.5 million investment in

58:02phone architecture to provide necessary dispatch, software, support, and backup

58:08system redundancies. As part of the critical prioritization work to reduce

58:16the city-controlled tax and rate impacts in Guelph's 2024 to 2027 multi-year

58:21budget, we have reduced downtown streetscaping budget that was recommended

58:26as part of the Urban Designs Streetscape Manual from a best to good level.

58:30This was estimated, this is an estimated savings over four years of $15 million

58:35and a $50 million and $50 million over the entire downtown renewal program. The

58:40community engagement as part of the downtown environmental assessment for

58:44Windham Street will inform the future budget investments. Also removed is the

58:50permanent seasonal patio program funding of $45,000 for part-time wages and

58:55water barriers. To third is any additional investment for the community

59:00investment program enhancements. Currently there is a temporary role funded

59:04from the reserves ending in 2024. This will impact additional funding that

59:09would have allowed for more grassroots community initiatives. And staff did

59:13not add the community safety bylaw officers that would have been proactively

59:17responding to social issues affecting businesses and residents and assisting

59:22those experiencing homelessness. This wraps up our walkthrough of how the

59:27budget aligns with and advances the future Guelph's strategic plan. And now

59:33I'd like to invite Mr. Lee back to the podium to continue the presentation.

59:37Thank you Ms. Holmes. Bridging value into budgetary impact from a tax

59:47perspective, the city's budget is just under 5% in 2024, averaging in the 5.5

59:52to 6% range through the forecast. Looking a bit deeper at the drivers you can

59:58see the operating budget inclusive of inflation, new investments just discussed

1:00:02from growth and service enhancements plus the operating impacts from capital

1:00:06projects is just under 3% in 2024. This is a below inflation increase,

1:00:11achieved by using the city's operating contingency reserve funds to manage

1:00:16impacts across the four years. This is a strategy that truly shows the value of

1:00:21building a four year budget. We will discuss the operating contingency

1:00:25reserves in a more detail in the later section of this presentation. From a

1:00:31capital perspective you'll see the impact in 2024 is the lowest in the four

1:00:36years at just 2% of an increase. When staff calculated the cost of historical

1:00:42and future looking inflation plus the investments needed to meet past

1:00:46commitments and catch up on aged infrastructure, that number really should

1:00:50be at about 4.83%. Due to the challenges assessing capacity to address

1:00:56affordability for the community, a lot of capital investment over 690 million

1:01:02of capital investment was deferred out of this 2024 to 2027 budget period.

1:01:09This has meant extending the life cycle of assets beyond where they should be

1:01:13replaced and it means making the project scope reductions where it is not ideal.

1:01:19Currently the risk of asset failure due to these budget reductions is manageable

1:01:23but not preferred and the community has seen it may see a deterioration in the

1:01:28quality of service. We do need to caution that given the significance of

1:01:32reducing capital funding by 60% from where it should be in 2024, further

1:01:39funding reductions will mean more capital project reductions and this will

1:01:43mean more significant potentially catastrophic asset failure.

1:01:48We'll now move to our rate supported services.

1:01:52The capital asset portfolio is the most significant driver of the water, waste

1:01:56water and stormwater services rate increases. It represents core assets

1:02:00totaling 2.3 billion and the asset management plan assessed at 2020

1:02:05replacement values. The annual transfers from the operating budget to the

1:02:09capital reserve funds pay for the replacement of the aged pipe networks

1:02:13and facilities as well as paying for all the growth related capital costs not

1:02:19funded by development charges. Capital funding required to balance asset

1:02:24renewal and growth needs is the biggest reason for cost increases in the rate

1:02:29budgets over the next four years. It should be cautioned that even at the

1:02:34current proposed capital contributions for the rate services the water services

1:02:39capital reserve fund remains in a growing deficit through the entire 10-year

1:02:42budget and forecast period. Staff is focused on reviewing this in a more

1:02:48detailed manner and reporting back to council with more information and a

1:02:52solution for moving forward in future budget confirmation years. It may mean

1:02:57more significant increases to the water rates or additional usage of debt. The

1:03:04commitment to delivering on the mayoral direction to build a budget that takes

1:03:07care of current services, plans for growth and sees through service enhancement

1:03:11commitments is demonstrated with the four-year capital investment overview.

1:03:15Our budget continues to take care of what we already own as the largest

1:03:20investment equating to just under half of the city's total investment. We have

1:03:24aging roads, pipes, vehicles and facilities and there's a significant

1:03:29backlog of work that needs to get done. This is depicted by the Blue

1:03:34Infrastructure Renewal Group. Following the enabling housing theme of this

1:03:38budget growth investment shown in green is the next largest capital investment

1:03:43category with a focus on unlocking housing in the downtown and the Guelph

1:03:48Innovation District area in the East End. Finally the third grouping is service

1:03:53enhancement where council has visions set out in the strategic plan like vision

1:03:58zero, race to zero and the transit future ready action plan. Staff is

1:04:03continuing investment at a slower pace than originally planned and it includes

1:04:08an increase in this funding starting in 2026 to finance these community building

1:04:13projects. Another way to look at the presented four-year capital budget is to

1:04:19look at the projects by program of work by services that will receive the

1:04:23benefit of the funding. This chart represents four years of investment

1:04:28starting with a budget in 2024 of 208.7 million stepping up to 482.4 million

1:04:34in 2027. Due to the city's goal of leveraging the provincial and federal

1:04:39transit ISAP funding as mentioned by DCO Clock Bush to advance the

1:04:44electrification of our transit fleet as well as the implementation of the future

1:04:48ready transit action plan the parking and transit services category has the

1:04:53largest investment in the four-year capital budget. Coming in relatively

1:04:57close are the investments in housing enabled capital in transportation and

1:05:01water management services. Together these two categories capture all the roads,

1:05:06water, wastewater and stormwater capital investment. The remainder of the capital

1:05:12budget which is less than 20% of the city's four-year capital budget is

1:05:16dispersed between other key services including parks and open spaces, corporate

1:05:22technology, culture and recreation and solid waste. When staff started this

1:05:26multi-year budget process the goal of bringing together all of the plans and

1:05:31strategies was where we envisioned the ideal state. That would have a fully

1:05:36funded 10-year capital budget and forecast. With any plan we found that

1:05:41there were hurdles including the time frame available, balancing the pressures

1:05:46of inflation, the infrastructure backlog, housing enabled work and

1:05:50servicing growth as well as new investments to better our services.

1:05:55Everything together all at once created a real fiscal challenge. We went back to

1:06:01the drawing board a number of times. In the end we deferred out as I've mentioned

1:06:05over 690 million in capital projects many of which have already been

1:06:10discussed. That being said we still have more work to do particularly related to

1:06:15key facilities like the Guelph Transit and Fleet Services Facility needed to

1:06:19support electrification as well as the water service program as previously

1:06:24mentioned by my colleagues. The key takeaways here is that even though staff

1:06:29have more work to do in the 2020-25 through 2027 years in isolated

1:06:35spots the multi-year budget process enables us to see the concerns and the

1:06:40confirmation years provide the space to work through those changes enable

1:06:44council on the further refinements and recommendations. As part of the work to

1:06:49reduce and revise the capital budget staff implemented a new strategy where

1:06:53certain projects were removed from the budget but kept in our system a new

1:06:58category called contingent on funding. This is done to reduce the budget but

1:07:04it's also enables us to keep track of these projects so that if funding does

1:07:08become available through grants, front-ending agreements or partnership

1:07:12opportunities they may come back to council for approval to move forward.

1:07:16There are two parts of this contingent on funding program grouping. First the

1:07:22Claremont B projects will be funded in the future once staff have

1:07:26investigated and implemented front-ending agreements in partnership with the

1:07:30developers of that area. We know the importance of this area in the city's

1:07:34growth targets but we have prioritized the downtown in the four-year budget

1:07:38cycle. This is to manage the critical aged infrastructure that has passed its

1:07:43end of life and the need to upsize the capacity for housing. This is the best

1:07:48value for the city's taxes and rates and it is addressing council strategic

1:07:53plan priorities at the same time as reducing financial and service delivery

1:07:57risks. Also in this budget are the enabling growth projects like the

1:08:02Guelph Innovation District. We have prioritized prepping the east end for

1:08:06more housing in the short term. This also includes critical York Road

1:08:11infrastructure renewal at the same time as the growth servicing is getting done

1:08:16showing coordinated and efficient project delivery. The second grouping of

1:08:21work in this category is service enhancement projects that are primed

1:08:25for being funded by grants and other partnership opportunities. These are

1:08:30projects we recommend doing but we don't have the funding right now. We feel

1:08:35that this presentation enables good clear messaging to other levels of

1:08:41government about key projects we need to fund for. Identifying this during the

1:08:46budget provides a focus for our intergovernmental staff to seek funding

1:08:51opportunities tied to these project outcomes. It can also offer a lens for

1:08:56community organizations that may want to partner in submitting a grant

1:08:59application. Because we have these in our financial system it creates tracking

1:09:05mechanism for where we can get funding and that we can recommend

1:09:12projects to move forward that are contingent into the actual budget. I'll

1:09:16now welcome Ms. Clackbush back to speak to you about our local boards and shared

1:09:20services. Thank you Mr. Lee. So as you of course know and as the mayor mentioned

1:09:31in his opening remarks the city funds all are part of the operations of several

1:09:36local boards and shared services that have separate governance structures and

1:09:40varied types of relationships with the city. Council does not have direct

1:09:44oversight of these boards and agencies however city counselors do sit as

1:09:48members of the board of governors for each of these entities and the city is

1:09:52responsible for funding their operations in whole or in part. Either

1:09:57virtually or available here in person today thank you. Our representatives

1:10:03from each of the local boards and shared service agencies available for

1:10:06council questions about their budget submission and I just want to stop

1:10:09there and pause and make sure that we're clear this is the opportunity to ask

1:10:13the local boards any questions they will not be making separate presentations

1:10:17to you. They are all online virtually and they other than the DGBA we have reps

1:10:22from every one of the local boards here and they also can't answer questions

1:10:27posed through the budget board. So I went off a little bit off script there

1:10:31just to make sure that we were clear that today is the opportunity to ask

1:10:34those reps any of the questions that you might have. So the Guelph public

1:10:39library board includes counselors Koran, Gawler and Klosson. The library budget

1:10:44has been approved by the board prior to submission to the city and highlights

1:10:48include a phased in approach that prioritizes key roles at each stage of

1:10:53the plan for hiring additional staff to operate the new central library beginning

1:10:57with five additional positions in 2024 and continuing through the forecast

1:11:03until the facility opens in 2026. There is a report that was released on October 13th

1:11:09that was pulled off of the information of items and is available on this agenda

1:11:14for context to this budget increase. The Guelph police services board includes

1:11:19Mayor Guthrie and Councillor Allt. The police budget has also been approved by

1:11:23the board prior to submission to the city and highlights include continuing to phase

1:11:28the implementation of the KPMG staffing and service delivery study recommendations,

1:11:34advancing the implementation of the supportive staffing program initiated by the police

1:11:38services board in 2023, funding capital funding for life cycle replacement of existing assets,

1:11:45dispatch communications equipment and expansion and renovation of the city's backup

1:11:50911 dispatch facility. The police budget does include some financial risk due to provincial

1:11:56grant agreements not aligning with the budget cycle. The budget assumes the grants will continue

1:12:01in their current form. The Elliott community was established as one of the city's local boards in

1:12:082002 and Councillor O'Rourke sits as the council representative on the Elliott board of trustees.

1:12:14As you know, additionally in 2014, the Elliott long-term care facility was designated as the

1:12:20city's long-term care provider, a requirement under provincial legislation that requires

1:12:25every municipality to provide this service. Council is also required to provide governance

1:12:30through the committee of management. And so as the chair of public services,

1:12:34Councillor Downer chairs the Elliott committee of management with Councillors Boussatill,

1:12:38Caighton, Chiu, Klosson, O'Rourke and Richardson forming the balance of the membership.

1:12:44The Elliott community's budget was approved by their board of trustees prior to submission to

1:12:50the city and includes capacity expansion of 29 long-term care residents partway through 2024,

1:12:57resulting in higher expenses in 2024 temporarily until the Ministry of Long-term Care funding

1:13:03begins after residents move in. And their budget also addresses legislative change impacting direct

1:13:08service hours resulting in higher operating costs and inflationary impacts on both staff

1:13:14resourcing and operating costs. Wellington Deffern Guelph Public Health has not finalized its budget

1:13:21prior to the city's budget process. Councillors Boussatill, Caighton and Guller are members of

1:13:26their board. However, they don't project significant changes to their budget. Inflationary and modest

1:13:33growth increases only. They do want to flag the risk of ongoing inflationary operating costs,

1:13:39minimal changes to provincial funding over the long term, and unplanned impacts from the

1:13:44province's public health transformation amalgamation efforts that could change their projections in

1:13:50the future. County of Wellington Social Services is a provincially legislated relationship where

1:13:56the county is responsible for delivering social services on behalf of the City of Guelph.

1:14:02Mayor Guthrie sits on the county's social services committee that governs that service.

1:14:07The county budget process lags city timing so the budget was developed to align with their

1:14:12county forecast which was approved in 2023. The county released their draft social services budget

1:14:19on the same day as the city which was November 3rd. As previously explained during the Council

1:14:24Budget Education session, the city has historically budgeted under the county's requested budget and

1:14:30catch-up is required given a late adjustment managed through reserves as part of the 2023

1:14:36confirmation. The city is phasing in this increase over the four-year cycle due to its significance.

1:14:43There does remain a risk that due to the city's budgeting practices we likely will need to manage

1:14:48overages through the budget monitoring processes until year four of the plan. In addition to the

1:14:54budgeted amount shown here on the screen, the county identified a significant increase to the

1:15:002024 proposed budget to support homelessness prevention and social housing services in our

1:15:06community and this will be discussed more in the following section. But in total, the total

1:15:12county budget for Guelph social services is $34.8 million which is an increase of $8.8 million

1:15:21over 2023 which is a 34% increase equating to an almost 3% tax levy increase for the city.

1:15:32So due to the city's phase-in strategy and managing this impact over four years,

1:15:36the city's overall budget for social services is proposed at $29.9 million which is an increase

1:15:44of $6 million or approximately 2% tax levy increase for the city. But that leaves a variance of

1:15:50$4.9 million to manage in 2024. This is a risk that may need operating reserve funds to help

1:15:58mitigate if the city's overall corporate position is not sufficient in 2024. So staff have included

1:16:05a budget strategy that closes this gap through 2025 to 2027 when the city will be back to budgeting

1:16:11at 100% of the county's submission. The Downtown Guelph Business Association or DGBA is a business

1:16:20improvement area in the downtown of Guelph that levies an additional special tax on those businesses

1:16:25within their boundary area. Counselors Downer and Galler sit on the DGBA board and the budget

1:16:30has been approved by the board prior to submission to the city. The DGBA is an association of commercial

1:16:36property owners and tenants who work in partnership with the city to create thriving,

1:16:41competitive and safe business areas that attract shoppers, diners, tourists and new businesses.

1:16:47The DGBA budget is included for council approval and there is a motion in the companion staff

1:16:53report as this falls outside of the new Strongmare legislation. The 2024 budget has been approved by

1:17:00the DGBA board with a total levy of approximately $700,000 which represents a 3% increase over 2023.

1:17:10And the final local board to discuss is the Grand River Conservation Authority. Given the focus of

1:17:15their work, the city's water and wastewater rates fund this organization. Counselors Billings and Chu

1:17:21are part of the GRCA board representing the city's interest and the GRCA budget has been

1:17:28provided to the city in draft at the time of this meeting. There are no significant changes to the

1:17:34budget, inflationary and growth increases only, but it should be noted that legislative changes

1:17:39to the Conservation Authority Act have not been reflected in this budget. This is because there

1:17:44is a memo of understanding between the GRCA and the city that is still in development. The impact

1:17:50on water and wastewater rates stays consistent at an increase of 0.6% in 2024 and 2025 and 0.05%

1:17:58in 2026 and 2027. And now I'll pass the floor back to Ms. Holmes to share more about the provincial

1:18:03impacts from housing, homelessness and hospitals on the city budget. Thank you, Ms. Clackbush.

1:18:11So this section of the budget highlights the provincial impacts of housing and homelessness

1:18:17and the deferred impact of council's six-year commitment to fund part of the provincially

1:18:21mandated hospital local share of the much needed hospital expansion plans. Like past sections,

1:18:28there is both a tax and a utility rate impact on these costs. From a property tax perspective,

1:18:35the housing legislation category encompasses two things. First, the cost of lost development

1:18:41charge revenues from bill 23. There is a requirement for the city to fund these reductions or we will

1:18:46be short capital revenues that put pipes and roads in the ground, critical elements to enable

1:18:52and growth. The most significant contribution to this starts in 2024 because the development

1:18:57charge study comes into effect in March and we will only be able to collect 80% of the needed

1:19:02revenues, only stepping up to a full 100% in the fifth year after study approval. It's important

1:19:09to note that the city has not budgeted for an increase for the new affordable housing exemptions.

1:19:15This is because at the time of preparing the budget, the regulations and new definition were

1:19:19not available. This transfer also captures the tax cost of growth studies and plans that were

1:19:25funded by development charges, but now are no longer eligible. Second, this category includes the

1:19:32staffing resources to enable compliance with legislation and to advance our housing pledge

1:19:37to accelerate Guelph's housing supply by processing applications, undertaking inspections, and

1:19:44maintaining legislated expedited timelines. This includes predictive positions hired this year

1:19:52in advance of the budget with planning within planning and building services, engineering and

1:19:57transportation services, and the strategy and...

1:20:00innovation and into governmental services departments.

1:20:03Two such roles are the Housing Stability Advisor

1:20:06and the Development Advisor,

1:20:07discussed with council at the October 17th

1:20:10special council meeting.

1:20:12These positions will enable the city to look

1:20:14at the entire housing continuum

1:20:16and focus more on affordable housing

1:20:19for the people of Guelph.

1:20:21As previously noted,

1:20:22there are also additional housing people resources

1:20:24planned to be required for 2024 to 2027

1:20:28to meet the anticipated needs

1:20:30for the accelerated housing approvals.

1:20:33A salary-gapping strategy is helping to phase in these costs

1:20:36and try to match the impacts to later years

1:20:38when assessment growth revenue should start to increase.

1:20:43The next major area that has a large budget impact

1:20:46on our community is the homelessness crisis

1:20:48and the new investment as requested

1:20:51by the County of Wellington to help our most vulnerable.

1:20:54These are social service requirements

1:20:56that the property tax base is not equipped to fund.

1:21:01Property tax is based on assessment values

1:21:04and not the appropriate revenue tool

1:21:06when an issue could be better support affordability

1:21:10for everyone when taxed based on income.

1:21:14Needs in social services are expanding

1:21:16due to reductions in provincial funding

1:21:18for rent supplements as well as increase in costs

1:21:21due to the growing mental health

1:21:22and additional impacts of housing residents

1:21:25that are not getting addressed.

1:21:27This is why a part of the social services increase,

1:21:30particularly the social housing increase of $4.6 million

1:21:34is categorized in this provincial grouping.

1:21:37The County's draft budget was released on November the 3rd

1:21:40and this investment increase addresses

1:21:42much of what was presented to council

1:21:44at the special council meeting of September the 12th.

1:21:48The link to the County's draft social services budget

1:21:50is included on the website.

1:21:54Finally, the last item in this grouping

1:21:56is council's commitment to fund part

1:21:58of the provincially mandated local share

1:22:00of the emergency room expansion

1:22:02at the Guelph General Hospital.

1:22:042024 is year four of six for this payment

1:22:07and up until now council has used reserves

1:22:09to fund this obligation.

1:22:11Staff do not recommend continuing the use of the reserves

1:22:14to fund this expansion this way.

1:22:17This is why you will see the impact showing in 2024

1:22:20and then dropping off in 2027

1:22:22once the final payment is complete in 2026.

1:22:26City investments for provincial housing,

1:22:28homelessness and hospital expansion

1:22:30first impacted taxes in 2023

1:22:33with the introduction of bill 109 and bill 23.

1:22:38Looking at the cumulative total of tax impact bills

1:22:41from 0.27% up to 5.24% over a five year period.

1:22:47As you have heard from CAO steward,

1:22:50we need a new municipal deal.

1:22:52These costs should not be carried by the homeowners

1:22:54through a regressive property taxation system.

1:23:00The water and wastewater,

1:23:02the water wastewater and stormwater rates are not immune

1:23:04from the impacts of bill 23's

1:23:06lost development charge revenues

1:23:08and accelerated housing targets either.

1:23:12Water wastewater and stormwater infrastructure

1:23:14are the services the city needs to enable more housing

1:23:17and meet the housing pledge.

1:23:19As a result, there are staffing impacts

1:23:22to accelerating development application reviews

1:23:24and responding to the higher anticipated volumes

1:23:28of inspections and service requirements.

1:23:31Over this four year budget cycle, utility rates

1:23:33are being redirected towards development fee discounts

1:23:36and exemptions instead of the water, wastewater

1:23:39and stormwater projects that support critical capital

1:23:42asset renewal needs.

1:23:44This redirection was necessary to help fill the gap

1:23:46created by provincially enacted legislation

1:23:49that reduced development charge revenues significantly.

1:23:52And at the same time, municipalities are being told

1:23:55to enable more housing and then be penalized if we don't.

1:24:01It's not a fair position for our city

1:24:02or the community to be put in.

1:24:04And we continue to call on the government to make us whole

1:24:07so we can get this infrastructure in the ground.

1:24:11So with that, Mr. Mayor,

1:24:12we've gone over a lot of content already this morning

1:24:15and we did plan a break before Ms. Baker walks you through

1:24:18the capital financing strategies

1:24:20and then we can conclude our presentation.

1:24:23Okay, I think, yeah, break could be good.

1:24:28We shouldn't defer our bladders.

1:24:30So let's do that.

1:24:34Thank you.

1:24:35I got a lot of councillor all that, that's a win.

1:24:37That's good.

1:24:38I'm gonna go, it's 20 minutes after 10.

1:24:40So why don't we come back here at,

1:24:42would 1030 be good with everybody?

1:24:44About 12 minutes?

1:24:47Yeah, okay.

1:24:48So 1030 everybody.

1:24:50And I just, we shouldn't be asked this at the beginning,

1:24:53but get through the entire presentation,

1:24:55then all questions at the end.

1:24:56Yes, okay.

1:24:58All right, perfect.

1:24:59All right, come on back in about 12 minutes.

1:25:00Okay.

1:26:29I see.

1:27:52I guess when the goal,

1:27:56I think that.

1:39:17Okay, everybody, to councillor Caton and Billings,

1:39:22just wanna make sure that you're there.

1:39:24If you could throw up your video for a second,

1:39:27because I do wanna start this next phase

1:39:29with a question first.

1:39:32Wanna make sure that you're there to hear it.

1:39:39I see you there, councillor Caton and Billings.

1:39:41Perfect.

1:39:42Okay.

1:39:43Quick question to council.

1:39:46Trying to respect some of the outside boards

1:39:49that are here and waiting.

1:39:53I have a feeling, unless you guys tell me differently,

1:39:58that does anyone have questions for the GRCA?

1:40:04No.

1:40:06Thank you to the CAO of the GRCA.

1:40:08You can go home.

1:40:09You can thank me later.

1:40:11Okay.

1:40:12Does anyone have, there's no questions for the DGBA.

1:40:15So that's fine.

1:40:18Who else?

1:40:18The Elliot.

1:40:20Do we have to have questions for the Elliot right now?

1:40:23No.

1:40:24The Elliot, thank me.

1:40:25Yes, councillor Gibson.

1:40:29Thank you.

1:40:29Through you, Mr. Mayor.

1:40:30I wouldn't mind having the DGBA.

1:40:32Is there a rep here?

1:40:33Cause I did have those.

1:40:34No, it was stated that they weren't here.

1:40:37So we can ask questions like to them later for sure,

1:40:39but they're not here.

1:40:40Yeah.

1:40:42The Elliot though, we're good on the Elliot everyone.

1:40:44It looks like we are.

1:40:45So to the executive director of the Elliot, thank you.

1:40:51Who else?

1:40:52Public health.

1:40:54That's a standard budget.

1:40:57Do you have a question for anyone at public health?

1:40:59You do.

1:41:00Do you need me to stick them around?

1:41:03It's okay if you do.

1:41:04This is your time.

1:41:05I'm not trying to stop anybody.

1:41:06I'm just meaning to ask.

1:41:07So I'd just like to understand what the impacts are.

1:41:09So before COVID, there had been a move for a consolidation.

1:41:13I'm just trying to understand whether that continues

1:41:16and what those impacts are going forward.

1:41:19So I could ask, can I ask it on the budget board?

1:41:26Can I ask?

1:41:27Well, perhaps one of my colleagues who sits on that board

1:41:29can answer that for me.

1:41:31I could do that.

1:41:32Okay.

1:41:33We'll do that.

1:41:33Yeah.

1:41:34Okay.

1:41:35Thank you councillor O'Rourke.

1:41:36So public health.

1:41:37Goodbye.

1:41:38Thank you very much.

1:41:40We're left with library.

1:41:42I've got questions for the library myself.

1:41:44So they're going to have to stick around.

1:41:48County is here.

1:41:49I imagine we have questions for county.

1:41:50I would imagine so.

1:41:51So yes.

1:41:54Okay.

1:41:55So stick around.

1:41:56Thank you.

1:41:58Police.

1:41:59Questions for police.

1:42:00That's good.

1:42:02Okay.

1:42:03I think that covers all of them, right?

1:42:06Okay.

1:42:07Thank you.

1:42:07So I just don't want people hanging around

1:42:10if we don't have questions for them right now.

1:42:12So please, sorry, please.

1:42:17Who else did I say?

1:42:18Library and county.

1:42:19You can stick around.

1:42:20Okay.

1:42:21Perfect.

1:42:22All right.

1:42:22Thank you council.

1:42:23Appreciate it.

1:42:24And councillor Katelyn and Billings,

1:42:26I understand if you need to turn your cameras off now

1:42:29or if you want to continue on, that's fine.

1:42:32I will turn it over to Tara now for the second part.

1:42:36And I'm so sorry.

1:42:36I think it's getting into capital.

1:42:39Was that what it was, Tara?

1:42:42Yeah.

1:42:43It's more of the financing piece for capital now.

1:42:45Yeah.

1:42:46Okay.

1:42:47So I'll turn it over to you

1:42:47and thanks a lot for the break everybody.

1:42:48That's great.

1:42:51Okay.

1:42:52So thanks.

1:42:53And now we are going to move into

1:42:57the suite of capital financing strategies

1:43:00that we use to support the advancement of projects

1:43:03in gloves strategic plan.

1:43:07The infrastructure renewal strategy

1:43:08funds the planned renewal and replacement of city assets.

1:43:12This strategy is directly linked

1:43:14to asset management planning.

1:43:16And the objective is to work towards a sustainable level

1:43:18of annual funding to ensure city assets are maintained

1:43:22in a state that provides reasonable level

1:43:24of service to the community.

1:43:25There are several sources of funding

1:43:28that we group in this category.

1:43:30Property taxes, water, wastewater, storm and parking rates,

1:43:34the Canada Community Building Fund grant,

1:43:37the dedicated gas tax funds for public transportation

1:43:42or otherwise known as provincial gas tax.

1:43:45And the dividends from the city's two wholly owned

1:43:49subsidiaries, Guelph Municipal Holdings, Inc.

1:43:52and Guelph Junction Railway.

1:43:54The chart on the left of the screen shows the gap

1:43:57between the amount of funding available

1:43:59and the funding required to maintain assets

1:44:01at a reasonable level.

1:44:03And as you can see, if the level of funding in 2023

1:44:07is increased annually for inflation only,

1:44:11the gap will continue to increase over time.

1:44:15The chart on the right shows the gap

1:44:17with the proposed strategy built into the multi-year budget

1:44:20by employing this approach, the city estimates

1:44:23we would reach sustainable level of funding by 2035.

1:44:27This is a continually moving target

1:44:29and these charts are based on a point in time estimate

1:44:32about inflation and approved funding levels.

1:44:35As our asset management function continues its work,

1:44:38the sustainability target will also be updated.

1:44:42The next asset management plan update

1:44:44will come to council in 2024.

1:44:48This slide focuses, the next slide focuses

1:44:52on infrastructure renewal for property tax funded services.

1:44:56The first thing I'd like to do is explain this chart

1:44:58you see on the screen, because you're gonna see it a lot.

1:45:02This is the format we'll use to present all of the strategies

1:45:05and we'll continue to then use this moving forward

1:45:07as well on confirmation years.

1:45:09The blue blocks on the chart represent funding

1:45:12going into the reserve funds.

1:45:14The orange blocks show the funds coming out of reserves

1:45:17for approved capital projects.

1:45:21The black line shows the ending balances

1:45:23in the reserve funds for each year

1:45:25through the budget and forecast period.

1:45:28I'm going infrastructure renewal funding going

1:45:30into the reserve fund for the tax supported services

1:45:33as just described as primarily property tax transfers

1:45:36and then which is depicted in the dark blue

1:45:39and then the grant funding

1:45:41from Canada Community Building Fund

1:45:43and our provincial gas tax showing in the light blue.

1:45:48As discussed earlier by DCO Lee,

1:45:50the increases to the property tax funding

1:45:52for infrastructure renewal in 24

1:45:54would have ideally included historical and future

1:45:59looking inflation adjustments.

1:46:02And then also it should be including

1:46:06the 1.4 million reduction to the transfer made

1:46:09in 2023 confirmation as well as continuing the increase

1:46:14for the commitment on the Baker Redevelopment Program.

1:46:20And that would have resulted in a transfer

1:46:23of 43.1 million for 24.

1:46:26And while that level of funding would get

1:46:28to the city sustainability target faster,

1:46:30it would require a very large increase in the tax levy

1:46:33and hinder affordability.

1:46:35So with this in mind, the strategy proposes more gradual

1:46:38to increasing the annual transfer

1:46:40with 34.6 million in total funding in 24.

1:46:45The black line shows the forecasted ending balances

1:46:48for the infrastructure renewal reserve funds

1:46:51over the budget and forecast period.

1:46:54As you can see this grouping dips into the negative

1:46:56beginning in 26 and then begins to recover by 2032.

1:47:02More work is required than we were able to accomplish

1:47:06through this budget process and timeline.

1:47:08Staff will continue to work on revising the capital forecast

1:47:11to reprioritize projects and balance this infrastructure

1:47:14renewal reserve fund in 25 to 2033 and beyond.

1:47:19Changes resulted from this work will be presented

1:47:21through the two council in the budget confirmation years.

1:47:25With the reduction in funding and the current balance

1:47:28in the reserve funds, there is limited flexibility

1:47:30to add projects without adding more funds to the transfer

1:47:34and there is limited flexibility to cut the transfer

1:47:37without deferring specific capital projects.

1:47:42This chart shows the infrastructure renewal

1:47:44for water, wastewater and stormwater.

1:47:46Although the transfers in these services are increasing

1:47:48by 6.5 million from 23 to 24,

1:47:53like the tax supported transfers, affordability hampered

1:47:56a level of increase to lower than ideal.

1:48:00Both the backward and forward looking inflation

1:48:02from 21 to 24 as well as increases to make progress

1:48:06on closing the infrastructure gap

1:48:08would have required an additional 8.2 million in funding.

1:48:12The capital expenditures shown in this chart in dark orange

1:48:15are only part of the picture and in addition,

1:48:18there's the development charge exemptions discount

1:48:20and rate phasins which are shown in the light orange.

1:48:24And we'll delve a little bit further

1:48:26into those costs in the next slides.

1:48:30Over the ending balances,

1:48:32overall the ending balances in these reserves

1:48:34as a group are positive in 24

1:48:37and then start to dip into the negative by 26.

1:48:41The combination of these reserves masks the earlier concern

1:48:45that was mentioned about the water services program

1:48:48which remains in a growing negative position

1:48:50starting as early as this year.

1:48:53Positive balances in the wastewater reserve fund

1:48:56will help offset the negative balance in the short term

1:48:59but significant wastewater projects that start in 26

1:49:03remove that flexibility.

1:49:05Like with the tax supported reserve funds

1:49:07for infrastructure renewal,

1:49:08we will be bringing back more work in the next year

1:49:12on particularly the water services program

1:49:17with a spending plan that's in line with available funding.

1:49:22So moving on to growth.

1:49:24There are three dedicated funding streams

1:49:26for growth capital costs.

1:49:28Our park lane dedication, cash and lieu,

1:49:31community benefit charges and then development charges.

1:49:34Our goal is to maximize the funding

1:49:36for all three of these revenue streams.

1:49:38To that end, as council knows,

1:49:39we are in the process of updating

1:49:41the development charge bylaw

1:49:42which is expected to be approved in January.

1:49:45Next up then will be the update

1:49:47of the park lane dedication bylaw

1:49:49followed by the community benefits charge bylaw

1:49:52before they expire in 2027.

1:49:55The development charge balances that you see

1:49:57are net of DC funded debt that has already been borrowed

1:50:03but they do not reflect future borrowing needs.

1:50:06We have reserved 190 million of debt capacity

1:50:09over four years from 2030 to 33

1:50:12to support the development charge reserve funds.

1:50:18The three growth capital revenue streams

1:50:21that we just talked about

1:50:22do not cover all the costs of growth.

1:50:24Some expenses are not eligible

1:50:26for development charge funding,

1:50:27including growth studies

1:50:29and growth related capital costs

1:50:30for garbage collection and disposal.

1:50:33These costs are funded through tax supported,

1:50:35the tax supported growth reserve fund

1:50:38and are reflected in the capital expenditure bars

1:50:41depicted in dark orange in the chart.

1:50:43So just the little small dark orange items.

1:50:47As discussed at length with council,

1:50:50DC exemptions, discounts and the phasing costs

1:50:52because of bill 23 have significantly increased in 23

1:50:56and are expected to continue into 24.

1:50:59The development charge reserve funds

1:51:01through legislation must be kept whole,

1:51:03which means when a building permit is pulled

1:51:05the DCs are not any DCs that are not paid at a full amount.

1:51:10At that time, the city makes that up with taxes and rates

1:51:14and there's no choice unfortunately.

1:51:16These projected costs are shown in light orange.

1:51:20These costs are based on our best estimate,

1:51:22but the impact is real.

1:51:24In 23 so far, this cost has more than doubled

1:51:28compared to the budgeted funding available as of September.

1:51:33Bill 23 costs specifically are all ready,

1:51:36just over 3 million compared to the budget of 1.6 million.

1:51:42If we consider making the city whole

1:51:44to be the act of getting us back

1:51:45to pre-bill 23 DC revenues,

1:51:48this graph represents the 227 million cost over 10 years

1:51:52that must be funded as development happens.

1:51:55The city must continue to advocate to the province

1:51:58to make us whole.

1:51:59We need the province to address the gap in our financials

1:52:03that has been created rather than forcing this

1:52:06onto our tax and rate payers.

1:52:11We need the province to address the gap in our financials

1:52:16so that they are not forced to pick this up

1:52:20by our tax and rate payers.

1:52:22If we meet the housing start targets,

1:52:25we may have some grant funding

1:52:26that can help fill this gap in the short term,

1:52:29but that this is really that unfair cycle.

1:52:32We have limited to no control over the housing starts

1:52:35or when the building permits will be pulled.

1:52:38We have budgeted the increase in funding required over time

1:52:42as slow as a build as possible,

1:52:44trying to align the impact

1:52:46with future growth assessment and rate growth.

1:52:49But you can see the deficit on the tax side is quite large.

1:52:54These costs will be monitoring comparison with actuals

1:52:57through the quarterly budget monitoring reports.

1:52:59There is a staff recommendation

1:53:01in the budget companion report

1:53:03that seeks council direction

1:53:04to include this future reporting in our monitoring ports.

1:53:08So it's clear until we get our better deal.

1:53:11This is the cost of growth

1:53:12that is now being borne by all of us.

1:53:15As development happens, we will fund these last DCs

1:53:18because we don't have a choice.

1:53:22The service enhancement strategy

1:53:23was formally labeled the city building strategy,

1:53:26and the name was changed to differentiate it

1:53:29from city building theme

1:53:30in the new future Guelph strategic plan.

1:53:33This strategy provides funding for service level increases

1:53:36which make progress toward council's strategic plan

1:53:40and approved service delivery master plans.

1:53:42The strategy proposed funds projects

1:53:44in the following categories,

1:53:46the Baker district active transportation network,

1:53:49including the cycling master plan,

1:53:51city facility and other corporate initiatives,

1:53:54the Guelph trail master plan,

1:53:55urban forest management plan and open spaces,

1:53:59investment in digital services and customer service,

1:54:02and the transit route review

1:54:03and other related service enhancements.

1:54:05As you can see the black line,

1:54:08again, the balance in this reserve fund

1:54:10fluctuates plus or minus 5 million

1:54:13over the 10 year budget forecast.

1:54:15The 2024 investment includes an increase of 500,000,

1:54:19which is the last step in the multi-year plan

1:54:21to fund the Baker district library,

1:54:23as well as an inflationary increase.

1:54:26This capital financing strategy also factors in a reduction

1:54:30in the time limited transfer

1:54:31from the Baker district operating phase in,

1:54:34resulting from the library's plan to hire,

1:54:37to phase in their hiring for the new main branch

1:54:39starting in 24.

1:54:40This has caused a reduction in city's funding

1:54:43to this reserve totaling 1.6 million over 24 and 25.

1:54:48As you can see in the chart,

1:54:50funding going into the reserve fund drops in 26,

1:54:54when these one-time transfers from the Baker district

1:54:57and south end phase in come to an end

1:54:59as those facilities open.

1:55:01In 2026, an annual increase of 500,000 per year

1:55:06is proposed to begin continuing to 2030.

1:55:09This plan will build enough funding

1:55:11to advance the service enhancement funded,

1:55:14the service enhancement funded projects

1:55:16included in the 10 year capital budget and forecast.

1:55:19It is important to note that this strategy

1:55:22does not fund everything that could be done

1:55:24in these categories.

1:55:27For example, several service enhancement projects,

1:55:30as described early in the presentation,

1:55:32have been removed from the budget

1:55:33and are part of the contingent on funding list,

1:55:36which may be added back if grant funding is received

1:55:38to enable them to move forward,

1:55:40or if council decides to fund them outright

1:55:42with an increase in funding.

1:55:45Staff have taken a balanced approach

1:55:47and have recommended a strategy to help move forward projects

1:55:50in each of the service enhancement categories

1:55:52throughout the budget forecast period.

1:55:56The Brownfield renewal strategy

1:55:58is formally called the contaminated site strategy

1:56:00and it funds activities to monitor, assess

1:56:03and clean up environmental contamination at city-owned sites.

1:56:06Funding for this strategy comes from a combination

1:56:10of property tax and utility rates.

1:56:12This strategy corresponds to two liabilities

1:56:15that are reported on our consolidated financial statements.

1:56:17At the end of 22, the sum of these two liabilities

1:56:20was 31.8 million.

1:56:22You may wonder when looking at this chart

1:56:24why the balance of this reserve continues to build up

1:56:28over the 10 year budget to the 32 million mark by 2033.

1:56:34And the reason is that the capital projects

1:56:36currently in the budget are mostly for studies

1:56:38and monitoring and some limited remediation.

1:56:41Capital projects for the actual clean up

1:56:43and site remediation will need to be added

1:56:46once the studies and the remedial work

1:56:49is complete and more accurate scopes of work

1:56:51with estimated costs are known.

1:56:53The money in this reserve is temporarily supporting

1:56:56our other strategies, notably infrastructure

1:56:59and growth that you saw where there are clear pressures now.

1:57:04We look at our reserve funds both individually

1:57:06but then all together.

1:57:08And while there are some reserves with challenges,

1:57:10some others like this one have capacity in the short term.

1:57:14And so we cannot reduce this capacity

1:57:16without considering the overall financial reserve position.

1:57:22Moving to the 100% renewable strategy,

1:57:25our last capital strategy is, and this funds

1:57:29projects that reduce emissions and support Guelph's goal

1:57:32to becoming net zero carbon community by 2050.

1:57:37The capital projects funded through this strategy

1:57:40include the Guelph Transit Electrification

1:57:43and the related facility infrastructure

1:57:46as well as other energy conservation initiatives.

1:57:49Despite proposed increases in the capital transfers

1:57:52ranging from 700,000 in 24 to 2.4 million in 27,

1:57:56there is not enough funding going into this reserve

1:57:59to fully support those projects,

1:58:01which is resulting in the negative balance you see.

1:58:04A significant contributor to this position

1:58:07is the Guelph Transit and Fleet Services Facility.

1:58:10And as mentioned previously by DCA Homes,

1:58:12staff are working to refine the scope of this project

1:58:15to bring it down and in line with available funding.

1:58:18Council can expect to see work come back to them

1:58:20as part of future budget confirmation.

1:58:27So moving on to our contingency reserves,

1:58:30the tax supported contingency reserves consists of seven,

1:58:33seven individual reserves and are also inclusive

1:58:37of those of our local boards, GPS and GPL.

1:58:41Each reserve has its own individual target

1:58:43as established in the general reserve

1:58:45and reserve fund policy, but as a group,

1:58:47the target balance for these reserves

1:58:49is eight to 10% of our own source revenue.

1:58:52In calculating the target balances,

1:58:54we have used the low end 8%

1:58:56of the estimated own source revenue.

1:58:59The pressure is that the city is facing

1:59:01in the multi-year budget, including high inflation,

1:59:03legislative changes and social challenges

1:59:06are consuming a significant portion of our tax capacity.

1:59:10So staff have used these rainy day funds to help.

1:59:13This is their intended purpose to phase tax impacts

1:59:16in over time and reduce the ending impact to our community.

1:59:20As you can see from the chart on the slide,

1:59:22the balances are lower than target, which is not ideal.

1:59:25And by 20, and so the forecasted end position for 23

1:59:29is estimated to be at 69% of target,

1:59:32declining down to 30% by 2027.

1:59:36Individually of note,

1:59:38the tax operating contingency reserve balance by 27

1:59:42will have just over 500,000 available.

1:59:45Reserve balances at this level reduce our flexibility

1:59:48to use these funds for one time priorities

1:59:51and increase our vulnerability with reduced funds

1:59:53to respond to unexpected issues in year.

1:59:56Because of this, we must not lose sight

1:59:58of the need to rebuild and to help reduce

2:00:00to build these balances, staff have recommended

2:00:03in the companion report to budget,

2:00:05transferring any year-end surpluses

2:00:07to contingency reserves as a top priority.

2:00:10You can read more about this

2:00:11in that staff report just mentioned.

2:00:15The non-tax support contingency reserves

2:00:17consist of parking water, wastewater, storm water,

2:00:20and court service contingencies.

2:00:22In 23, the forecasted ending balances

2:00:24are as a group or over 100% of target.

2:00:30The use of the waterways water reserves

2:00:33to phase in one-time impacts

2:00:35related to the utility billing transition

2:00:37will draw these reserve balances down

2:00:40over the three years

2:00:43to a low of approximately 46% increasing thereafter.

2:00:48This project is still in development, however,

2:00:50and these are estimates only

2:00:52and a focus to rebuild these balances

2:00:54will be part of future budgets

2:00:56and any in-year surplus allocations.

2:00:59Also of note, the parking contingency reserve

2:01:02is fully depleted

2:01:03due to the post-COVID parking demand reduction.

2:01:06Through the approved parking master plan,

2:01:08there are strategies in place to rebound

2:01:10the financial sustainability of this service.

2:01:13But in the short term,

2:01:14especially with the planned downtown renewal program,

2:01:18the parking capital reserve will be under pressure

2:01:20as well as the parking contingency.

2:01:24Finally, this chart shows our direct debt

2:01:28as a percentage of operating revenue

2:01:30based on the proposed plan

2:01:32of borrowing 50 million in debt per year,

2:01:34beginning in 25 through 2033.

2:01:38Debt borrowed in 25 through 28

2:01:40will first be to refinance the debt balloon payments

2:01:44coming up in 26

2:01:46for the Guelph Police Services headquarters,

2:01:49the Victoria Road Recreation Center renovations,

2:01:52and the Claire Laird and Hanlon interchange.

2:01:55This allotment will provide cash flow.

2:01:58Then for that whole allotment will then also provide cash flow

2:02:03for projects approved through previous budgets,

2:02:06including the South End Community Center,

2:02:09the Baker District,

2:02:11the planning stages of the Guelph Transit and Fleet Center,

2:02:13and then also the FM Woods Station upgrade.

2:02:17Beginning in 2028 through 2030,

2:02:20debt borrowed will support projects proposed

2:02:22through the 24 to 27 budget,

2:02:24including additional money for FM Woods,

2:02:27the Verney Booster Pumping Station,

2:02:29and the Guelph Transit and Fleet Facility.

2:02:32What is not included in this picture

2:02:34is the 190 million in debt

2:02:37that was reserved for growth projects from 2030 to 33.

2:02:42We have reserved this capacity

2:02:43given the significant growth-related work to occur

2:02:46and the risks surrounding the pace of growth

2:02:48in the actual collection of development charge revenues.

2:02:51The timing of borrowing often happens several years

2:02:54after the project is approved through the budget process.

2:02:58This is because the money to be borrowed,

2:03:02this is because projects for which the money to be borrowed

2:03:05are usually significant in scope and value

2:03:07and take time to plan, design, tender, and execute.

2:03:11Budget approval to use debt as a financing tool

2:03:14means that councils approve the use in principle,

2:03:16and the capital project moves forward based on that approval.

2:03:19However, prior to borrowing,

2:03:21the money specific approval from council through bylaw

2:03:24is required.

2:03:25Staff report to council with detailed background information

2:03:28about the rates and effect at that time

2:03:30and provide other information regarding the amount

2:03:32in terms of borrowing.

2:03:35Although there is significant debt to issue,

2:03:37we are planning to wait until 2025

2:03:39to begin borrowing as interest rates remain high.

2:03:42The Bank of Canada has indicated

2:03:44that it will continue raising rates

2:03:45until inflation decreases to their 2% policy target,

2:03:49which is not expected immediately.

2:03:51With this forecast, you can see that there is more pressure

2:03:54on the city's debt capacity over the coming decade,

2:03:57and we expect to exceed S&Ps recommended 30% target

2:04:02while remaining within our city policy

2:04:04to a maximum of 55%.

2:04:08As previously indicated, the capacity you see

2:04:10is kind of the white space between the top of the blue bar

2:04:15and the city's policy level is done purposeful

2:04:22to ensure that we have capacity for growth.

2:04:25So now with that, I will then invite our CAO Stuart back

2:04:29to close our presentation.

2:04:36Thank you very much, Ms. Baker and council.

2:04:37We are near the end of the staff presentation anyway

2:04:40of the 24 to 27 multi-year budget.

2:04:45I do want to help bring all this information

2:04:46that you've received together

2:04:48and we'll share the some next steps

2:04:49and how you can engage with constituents

2:04:52throughout the remainder of November.

2:04:55In this next slide, you see the city's property tax budget

2:04:58includes three distinct parts that have been discussed today

2:05:01and I think highlighted by the mayor this morning

2:05:03when we first started a couple hours ago.

2:05:05City services, other services delivered by boards and agencies

2:05:10and the provincial housing homelessness

2:05:12and hospital expansion impacts.

2:05:14When we bring all of this together,

2:05:15that total impact started high of 10.3% in 2024

2:05:20and falls to 6.6% in 2027.

2:05:24To put these dollars and cents,

2:05:26to put this in the dollars and cents,

2:05:27the average residential homeowner on Guelph

2:05:29would see an average monthly increase

2:05:31of about 32 to $39.

2:05:35I want to take a moment to reflect on the inability

2:05:37of some in our community to absorb this cost.

2:05:40Myself and the city staff do not take this lightly

2:05:43and I know that many are struggling

2:05:44and this adds to already tough situations.

2:05:48At the same time, we have an obligation

2:05:50to maintain the services we need to deliver

2:05:52made in provincially mandated requirements

2:05:55in addition to seeing through council's vision

2:05:57to build a community where people want to live, work and play.

2:06:01We, the collective of the executive team,

2:06:03board representatives and department heads

2:06:05are here to support council through

2:06:07some of these tough conversations

2:06:09and difficult decisions that do lie ahead

2:06:11and we continue through the amendment process

2:06:14we're also here to discuss impacts to service levels

2:06:17with any proposed reductions

2:06:19so that decisions are made with eyes wide open.

2:06:23We started at a much higher rate,

2:06:25much higher tax impact this spring and a work hard,

2:06:27and I mean really hard,

2:06:29to get it down to the numbers on screen

2:06:31and you've heard that from all the DCOs

2:06:32that have come up today to talk about

2:06:34various dollars and cents that have come up,

2:06:36both in operate and in capital.

2:06:38And despite that work,

2:06:39we understand that this land in place is far from ideal.

2:06:43I continue to call out the need for other levels of government

2:06:46to do their part in stopping the downloading cost

2:06:49to our property owners.

2:06:50And we need to deliver,

2:06:52and they need, we need a new deal

2:06:55and that's that proper revenue tools

2:06:57to support community building,

2:06:59infrastructure renewal and public services.

2:07:02And part of our task on this,

2:07:03and I leave this one on the screen

2:07:05because this is really our rates piece,

2:07:07but part of our task on this,

2:07:08and this is just a reminder,

2:07:09even when we talk about,

2:07:13we reference them as developer discounts,

2:07:15but Bill 23,

2:07:17part of the issue for us is,

2:07:20if we were to stop doing things,

2:07:22we also get penalized for that

2:07:24because there's a penalty on the front end

2:07:26where you have to reimburse the application fees.

2:07:29So that's the head shaking part

2:07:31that we're all struggling with.

2:07:32So what control do we have?

2:07:34Can we just say we're not going to process it?

2:07:36Unfortunately these days,

2:07:38there's a clock with a fiscal penalty attached to it,

2:07:40where it used to just be there was a clock,

2:07:42the 90 days and under 20 days.

2:07:44So that's the difficulty that we all have.

2:07:47Ultimately infrastructure might be the piece,

2:07:51that's an issue for us all,

2:07:52because if we can't,

2:07:54we don't have the capacity to can't hook up,

2:07:56but that can't be delayed in a false way.

2:07:58It has to be accurate.

2:07:59And of course that's what staff would provide.

2:08:01But the dilemma I'm pointing out to you

2:08:04is you're in that spot where the province of force,

2:08:06that's where I mentioned earlier,

2:08:08these fiscal and bureaucratic handcuffs

2:08:10that we're put on cities across this province

2:08:14is so darn difficult that you've got nowhere to turn.

2:08:18You've got to say yes to an application that comes in.

2:08:20You can't say no,

2:08:22but if you don't do it in the within time period,

2:08:24you have the penalty to reimburse the money.

2:08:27So if I was the developer,

2:08:29why wouldn't you make the application?

2:08:30You've got to make the application and then it's on us.

2:08:34And then there it is.

2:08:34That whammy is happening to us.

2:08:37And you have to hire staff to process the applications,

2:08:40but we can't afford to, it's a very difficult spot.

2:08:43So that's a bit whiny for me,

2:08:45but I'm just recognizing it is a difficult spot

2:08:48for all of you as you move through this.

2:08:50And I'm hoping some of the discussions

2:08:51with your constituents are helpful in terms of,

2:08:56there's more to the complexity

2:08:57of these municipal budgets than just that percentage.

2:09:01We'll all react to the percentage, of course, it's high,

2:09:04but there's so much other things behind it

2:09:06that's very difficult as well.

2:09:08We're hoping you get a sense of that.

2:09:10I don't want to breathe by this one.

2:09:12This, you heard this from Mr. Lee earlier.

2:09:15You know, this is the right side of our budget lines.

2:09:18You're seeing here the work,

2:09:19this forecasted work on our utility sides,

2:09:22if you will see it that way.

2:09:23And we can't afford not to take care of water,

2:09:25wastewater and stormwater,

2:09:27because there is significant consequences

2:09:28to not doing those things.

2:09:30Plus there is also issues around the Safe Drink

2:09:33and Water Act that you actually,

2:09:35from a fiduciary responsibility,

2:09:36you cannot ignore either.

2:09:38So there's lots of places where the province guides us

2:09:42that perhaps don't help us

2:09:43in finding solutions to budgets.

2:09:46But perhaps the next slide,

2:09:47the last slide really is next steps.

2:09:50So this can be an overwhelming week

2:09:53as we launch into this.

2:09:55And today is just the beginning of a month long process

2:09:58of reviewing and engaging on golf's multi-year budget.

2:10:02We know that there'll be some tough conversations

2:10:05and difficult decision making ahead of council.

2:10:07And we have time for those conversations to happen.

2:10:10And staff and board representatives here to support you.

2:10:13It doesn't all have to happen today.

2:10:16So again, take some of this in,

2:10:18in breathe, it doesn't have to happen today.

2:10:20Certainly there's questions you may have of us.

2:10:23And that's good.

2:10:24And you've asked some members of the boards and agencies

2:10:27to participate a little bit here.

2:10:29Today as we move on,

2:10:30but we've got the entire month in front of us as well.

2:10:34Starting tomorrow,

2:10:37under the sort of council lad town halls,

2:10:38but starting tomorrow,

2:10:39the mayor and I will be hosting a budget breakfast

2:10:41with the Chamber of Commerce.

2:10:43And then through the month you're hosting

2:10:45a variety of town halls,

2:10:46that will be an important opportunity

2:10:48for you to engage with community.

2:10:51And I certainly thank you for taking the time

2:10:53to set these up and having those discussions.

2:10:55Our finance staff, I know are participating in some of them.

2:10:58And there's a couple of others.

2:11:01I know Councillor Zoll has asked me to participate

2:11:04with breathing breakfast this week as well.

2:11:05So there's a couple of other spots

2:11:07that are sort of less formal,

2:11:08but that we're going to be active with

2:11:10just to help with the messaging.

2:11:12So we're here to help you with that as well.

2:11:15And also we're hosting a virtual engagement opportunity

2:11:19for the entire community on Have Your Sight.

2:11:22It's live now and it will stay open until November 16th.

2:11:25And we encourage council to share this additional,

2:11:28engagement opportunity with your constituents

2:11:31like past budgets.

2:11:32We also have November 15th, budget delegation night

2:11:36is set up so that we can hear from the public

2:11:38on public delegation night.

2:11:40The budget board is open and we encourage you to use it

2:11:44to ask your budget questions.

2:11:45The budget board is a public tool.

2:11:47We're all councillor questions and staff responses

2:11:50are posted and visible to the community

2:11:52to support transparency.

2:11:54So please keep an eye on that board

2:11:56and read it throughout the month.

2:11:58Your colleagues may have the same question

2:12:00and this is a way for staff to be efficient

2:12:02in responding to all of council at the same time.

2:12:05All hands are on deck to support your questions.

2:12:08So again, it doesn't always have to be the day.

2:12:10You might not have questions today,

2:12:12but they'll come to you as you have these dialogues

2:12:13with your constituents.

2:12:16So please don't feel you cannot call or set up

2:12:19and meet them with your budget buddy.

2:12:22A member of the executive or a department head

2:12:24if you have more questions about a particular service.

2:12:26That's okay to do.

2:12:27And we'll try to capture the main question

2:12:29and answers and post for everyone's benefit.

2:12:33On November 29th, we'll come back together

2:12:35to work through the amendment process.

2:12:38We hope by then all your questions will be answered

2:12:40and you can focus on decision-making

2:12:42and the time to engage with us is now.

2:12:44So let's use all of the time in the next three and a half weeks

2:12:47to work together to find the best path forward for Guelph.

2:12:52And finally, I want to sincerely thank city staff

2:12:54for their dedication and hard work.

2:12:56This 24 to 27 multi-year budget development

2:12:59was like no other, full of complexity

2:13:02and at what seemed at points consistent or constant change.

2:13:06Keeping us on our toes.

2:13:08The collaboration and teamwork over many months

2:13:10is something to be incredibly proud of.

2:13:13And I hope you are, as our Board of Governors,

2:13:15I hope you are incredibly proud of the work

2:13:17that's gone into it.

2:13:19We'll work on the number,

2:13:20but the work that's gone into it

2:13:22takes a lot of work, of course.

2:13:23And our job as city is to serve the public and our budget

2:13:27is led by our new strategic plan

2:13:29and your council direction is the roadmap

2:13:32for how we proceed over the next four years and beyond.

2:13:34We want to deliver public services

2:13:36that support a high quality of life.

2:13:38We want to build complete communities.

2:13:41It's part of what makes Guelph a great place to live.

2:13:44With that, Mr. Mayor, we're finished

2:13:46and we'll turn it back to you

2:13:47and council for any questions.

2:13:49Thank you.

2:13:51Okay, well, thank you, Scott,

2:13:52and to the team and all staff, really appreciate it.

2:13:55And what I'm gonna do is I am just gonna,

2:13:59there's gonna be a lot of questions, like a lot, I know.

2:14:02So no, no, no hands right now.

2:14:04We're gonna take another five minute break

2:14:06just to walk around, just five minutes,

2:14:08just to get, just, you know, get ready

2:14:10because there's gonna be a lot of questions.

2:14:12So five minutes, not, not, I'll make it eight, okay?

2:14:14We're gonna come back here at 1115.

2:14:16Okay, thank you very much.

2:14:29Yeah, I'd like to start with the board's questions

2:14:31so we can get those out of the way

2:14:33and then we can come back, okay?

2:14:34So just think about that in the next eight minutes.

2:21:04This is just your one minute warning, okay?

2:26:47Okay, everyone, thank you for the extra little time.

2:26:52Got our questions lined up.

2:26:54So I'll call the meeting back to order.

2:26:57One quick thing that was just mentioned to me

2:27:00over the break from another councillor,

2:27:03which I think is a good idea,

2:27:05wondering if staff could agree to this.

2:27:08So not everyone in the city is going to be able

2:27:11to see this video, watch this video.

2:27:14I mean, maybe we can set the link out later, of course.

2:27:17But the budget board is also a real great tool

2:27:21for where questions and answers are publicly posted.

2:27:25And so just wondering if staff could capture

2:27:31the essence of any of the Qs and the As

2:27:34that come from here that could be transferred also

2:27:37onto the budget board.

2:27:39So now we already know that some of the questions

2:27:42may be taken away for the budget board anyways

2:27:45because the answer might not be available.

2:27:46But if there's a question and an answer here today,

2:27:50could you please just grab that

2:27:51and also shove it on the budget board?

2:27:53That way it's this like one place

2:27:55where everyone can see it later on.

2:27:56Is staff okay with that?

2:28:02No, Mr. Mayor, I think generally yes,

2:28:04if you give us a bit of grace

2:28:06and we might collect some themes together

2:28:07and do it that way.

2:28:08Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:28:09And then nobody misses their one question,

2:28:11but I think we can grab what you're getting at.

2:28:14Yeah, yeah.

2:28:15Okay, thank you.

2:28:17All right, and then the next thing I'm gonna do is,

2:28:19I'm gonna head to the, as I said before,

2:28:21the board, gonna head to the boards for questions.

2:28:24Gonna start with police.

2:28:25Then I'll move to library.

2:28:29And then I'll move to the county.

2:28:32We're just waiting for someone from the county to come.

2:28:35If that person from the county doesn't make it quite yet,

2:28:38we'll jump into other questions,

2:28:39but when the person from the county comes,

2:28:41it's Louisa, when Louisa shows up,

2:28:43then we'll jump back to the county

2:28:44and they're aware of that, so it's all good.

2:28:46So I'd like us to, all of us to focus on,

2:28:51you know, the questions for the one outside board.

2:28:54So I don't wanna jump around.

2:28:55We'll do questions for police.

2:28:57Then we'll do questions for library.

2:28:59And then we'll do, and then we'll go to county,

2:29:01potentially, okay?

2:29:09Yeah, so maybe after the specific ones,

2:29:13I would ask that question publicly to our deputy CAO,

2:29:16one of them, yeah, that's a good idea.

2:29:19Okay, so what did I say was first?

2:29:22I guess I better go with the chief,

2:29:24since he's on the camera.

2:29:25So that's the police.

2:29:27Thank you, Chief Colby, for joining us.

2:29:30Questions for police.

2:29:31And we're starting with counselor Galler, please.

2:29:33And then I'll go to Gibson and O'Rourke.

2:29:37Through you, Mr. Mayor, before we start,

2:29:39could the clerk's office make sure Sarah Purton

2:29:43has been let in as well?

2:29:44I'm not sure, I don't see her on my screen.

2:29:47Yep, they're looking right now, just one second, okay?

2:29:59Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

2:30:00And through you to Chief Colby, we've got Sarah online,

2:30:02she just needs to turn her camera on

2:30:03and then she'll be visible to the members of council.

2:30:08Okay, we see her now, she's there.

2:30:10Thank you very much.

2:30:12Councillor Goller, can you please go first?

2:30:16Thank you.

2:30:19Thank you, and through your worship to Chief Colby.

2:30:23And thank you for being here today.

2:30:26I'm looking at the budget and it looks to me like in 2024,

2:30:30there is a 3.4 million increase over the 2023 budget.

2:30:35And then we have 4.1, 3.8, 3.7.

2:30:39Back in 2019, 2018, there was a request

2:30:44for a budget increase of about that size of 4 million.

2:30:48And we understood that it was to increase the capacity

2:30:52and reduce the overtime problem that police was having.

2:30:57Could you help me understand?

2:31:00That was a one-time ex-sardiner request

2:31:03to increase to a new level.

2:31:05But now we're seeing that every budget

2:31:06has that similar size upscale.

2:31:09Could you help me understand where that money is going?

2:31:14Sure, now just before I start through you,

2:31:17Mr. Mayor and Councillor Goller,

2:31:19have you had a chance to review or watch

2:31:22the budget presentation given to our board

2:31:26that's on YouTube, the whole presentations on October 5th?

2:31:30I just wanna, just so I calibrate

2:31:32how much you've had an opportunity.

2:31:34Have you watched that already?

2:31:36I have not.

2:31:37The only documents provided to Council

2:31:39were a letter from October 5th

2:31:40with the capital budget numbers

2:31:44and a letter from October 19th, I think,

2:31:47with the operating budget numbers.

2:31:49So I have no other information from police services

2:31:52than those two letters that just tell me the numbers.

2:31:55Okay, so for all of our Council, our community

2:31:59and our media partners,

2:32:00I would really encourage everybody on YouTube, October 5th.

2:32:05So if someone was going to YouTube

2:32:06and search Guelph Police Services Board,

2:32:09there's an October 5th meeting,

2:32:11and I'll save you 56 minutes,

2:32:13the operating budget starts, I believe, at minute 56,

2:32:17where we talk a lot about this.

2:32:19So, and Councillor Goller, I'm trying to do that

2:32:21because as you know, I could talk that length

2:32:23on most subjects, but I also,

2:32:26I'm mindful of the time that Council has.

2:32:27So with that, Mr. Mayor,

2:32:32through you, Mr. Mayor, to Councillor Goller,

2:32:33so the increase that was presented

2:32:38and that Council supported for 2020,

2:32:41yes, as you recall, that was 30 resources,

2:32:44and that was a function of a great deal of work

2:32:46and a great deal of organizational risk and jeopardy

2:32:50because we had fallen so far behind,

2:32:53given the growth of the city.

2:32:54The budget that you have before you,

2:32:57well, it's a similar type of FTE,

2:33:02about 30 people, new FTEs,

2:33:04that's phased in over four years.

2:33:07So it's certainly not 30 people of a year,

2:33:11and I'm going to give you a chance

2:33:14to digest that, Councillor Goller,

2:33:16because I'm not sure how much detail

2:33:18you want me to get into,

2:33:20as we could speak a very long time about this.

2:33:25Yeah, I do understand that now.

2:33:27Help me understand here, back in 2020,

2:33:30we had 30 new positions between officers

2:33:34and civilian staff at about $4 million,

2:33:38but now we are looking at an $16 to $18 million increase

2:33:45for another 30 positions.

2:33:46It just doesn't seem like the scale's there.

2:33:50Would we not be able to hire more like 70 people

2:33:53or 80 people for the budget increases that we're seeing?

2:34:00Yeah, now I just want to confirm

2:34:03through you, Mr. Mayor, to the clerk,

2:34:06am I able to share my screen?

2:34:10Unfortunately, no.

2:34:13But again, if you need to,

2:34:15I mean, it would be good if we can get a visual,

2:34:17I'm sorry, a verbal response to the degree that you can,

2:34:21and then if not, then it could maybe go on to an email

2:34:24or a budget board later for Council.

2:34:27But yeah, back to you, Chief.

2:34:29Sure, yeah.

2:34:30So now in 2019,

2:34:34if you recall, the Board approved that,

2:34:37sorry, Council approved that

2:34:39after the Board approved the budget request,

2:34:41and those positions were phased in

2:34:44and then annualized the following year.

2:34:46So there was an annualization component in 2021

2:34:50that would have been happened, would have occurred.

2:34:52And just to give you kind of the foundational understanding,

2:34:56so I'm sure Councillor's probably very aware

2:34:59of Mr. Bruce Pever.

2:35:02He did the service rationalization for you about a year ago.

2:35:06Very shortly after they did that review for you,

2:35:08we had them do a staffing and service delivery review

2:35:14to give a projection with respect to what's required.

2:35:17That review was completed,

2:35:19and their recommendation was that we would require

2:35:2324 to 34 FTEs right now

2:35:27to reach an average of the comparator universe.

2:35:31What we've tried to do to manage affordability

2:35:34and mitigate risk is phase that point in time recommendation

2:35:40over the four year period.

2:35:42And again, all of this is available on the YouTube link

2:35:48as well as I'm sure Board ZA,

2:35:51Ms. LaSalle could forward the full reports.

2:35:56Okay, thank you for that.

2:35:57So just so that I'm clear,

2:35:59these increases bring us up to a level

2:36:02that is comparable to other municipalities

2:36:05or size in terms of the number of officers

2:36:07in the police service,

2:36:09but they do not represent any significant increases

2:36:13in service levels.

2:36:15Well, yes and no.

2:36:19So the KPMG said we'd need 19 more officers today.

2:36:25We would have an average of the comparator group.

2:36:27So obviously 19 in one year is quite a bit.

2:36:31So right now we currently,

2:36:35we have the lowest number of active officers

2:36:39carrying the highest number of calls

2:36:41in the fastest growing community for the comparator group.

2:36:45So the budget proposal,

2:36:50the budget that the Board has approved,

2:36:52it will allow us to start to reduce

2:36:59it allows us to start to provide more service

2:37:01while also greatly reducing the impact on our members

2:37:06because we have significant jeopardy

2:37:10with respect to the burden that we're placing on members

2:37:12for WSIB, et cetera, et cetera.

2:37:14And again, I'll let you digest that

2:37:16because I can tell a whole lot more there too,

2:37:18Councillor Dulles.

2:37:19Okay, okay, I appreciate that Chief.

2:37:20And I will go back to the October 5th

2:37:25Police Services Board meeting to review that.

2:37:27Just for today, the capital request

2:37:31that is part of the budget,

2:37:34it lists that 6.5 million in 2024.

2:37:38Could you tell us what that is for?

2:37:40Is that that capital request?

2:37:45Yeah, so that would be to obviously similar

2:37:47to our city colleagues to invest in maintained

2:37:52current assets and then to purchase critical assets

2:37:56required to provide operations.

2:37:58So it's not obviously larger scale capital investments

2:38:03were deferred from this budget a couple of weeks ago

2:38:08that you might have noted that that's also noted

2:38:10in the Council meetings, or sorry, in the Board meetings.

2:38:13Okay, thank you very much Chief.

2:38:15Thank you, Mayor.

2:38:17Thank you, Gibson, Dan, or Mark.

2:38:20Thank you, Mayor Guthrie.

2:38:22Thanks Chief for joining us today.

2:38:25Quick question, it's a bit of a theme.

2:38:26I'm just gonna ask it.

2:38:27And again, I wanna preface this with

2:38:31in your Guelph Police Services budget,

2:38:33the page that staff have brought us with,

2:38:36the parentheses numbers are deficits, right?

2:38:38They're the losses, they're the negatives,

2:38:40whereas the non parentheses numbers are the positives,

2:38:43just to be clear.

2:38:47Sorry, through you, Mr. Mayor.

2:38:50Sorry.

2:38:51I'm not sure if we're looking at the same thing.

2:38:55So Gibson, Sarah, are you able to assist with that?

2:39:00Sorry, I'm not sure.

2:39:02What's being viewed, Doctor?

2:39:04Yeah, it goes without saying,

2:39:05I can think I'm just clarifying for everyone in the room.

2:39:08When I see a number in a bracket, that's a negative.

2:39:10When I see a number outside of a bracket,

2:39:12that is a positive, right?

2:39:13Is an addition.

2:39:15So for example, my guess of my question is

2:39:17the user fee and service charges,

2:39:18I've just noticed the theme, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,

2:39:22seems like there is, so in 2024,

2:39:26$616,000 to the negative when it comes to user fees

2:39:31and service charges.

2:39:31I'm just wondering if you could help me understand

2:39:34that loss in sort of revenues.

2:39:36There's also external recoveries and grants there

2:39:38that seem to be on the negative side.

2:39:40Can I just help understand where that,

2:39:43what's driving that decrease in revenue for the department?

2:39:51Sarah?

2:39:51Right, so the $616,000 that you see in user fees,

2:39:55that's the total revenue from user fees

2:39:58that we're estimating to collect.

2:40:00Okay, I'm sorry. So I've got that right now. I apologize. Thank you very much. Again, it's just a theme, but I may be asking a few outside boards. So I appreciate you clarifying.

2:40:10So, when it comes to external recoveries and grants, you're still anticipating a grant of 2.6 million in 2024. Is that correct?

2:40:18Yes, through you, Mr. Mayor, that's several grants, but that's the total that we expect to.

2:40:27Okay, can you help us understand where those grants come from for the police service?

2:40:33Yeah, chief, do you want me to take that one? Yes, please sir. Sorry.

2:40:49So, through you, Mr. Mayor, we can, we can circulate our report. This is included as an appendix to the report that goes to our board, but included in our operating budget. There's 5 grants.

2:41:02So the 1st 1, do you want to know specific amounts roughly?

2:41:07I'm just trying to understand how the how the revenues are built. Thank you. Okay. So we get a court security prisoner transport grant that partially offsets the cost of providing those services.

2:41:20We get 2, what are called community safety and policing grants that help fund frontline operations and our partnership with the impact program.

2:41:32There's a ride grant. So the province funds the ride programs included in our budget and

2:41:42sexual abuse and internet exploitation. We get a grant from the province for that as well. So the sum of those 5 grants are what's reflected in our operating budget.

2:41:56That's great. Thank you very much.

2:41:59Thank you. And then, Oroch and Alt.

2:42:02Thank you, Mayor Guthrie. Through you to Chief Colby.

2:42:05I had a similar question to Councillor Goller. So there was a 10% budget increase for a police in decided in 29 effective in 2020. Can you remind me I can't tell from the staff presentation. What's the percentage increase for this budget that GPS is asking for?

2:42:23So I could again, I'm going to so I think it would be really helpful if

2:42:31through staff, perhaps Sarah, if you had an opportunity to complete budget package that the board has seen the public package, obviously.

2:42:39If I look right now, so 2024.

2:42:43Less assessment growth for all these numbers. It's 6.0625 6.926 5.727 5.4.

2:42:54Thanks that that's helpful. So we heard from our staff that given the context, they had to go back a number of times to to reevaluate their capital needs to reevaluate what was possible to push out into the future.

2:43:12I understand that GPS has done that with an indoor firing range and renovations to or completion of the fourth floor at the station.

2:43:22Is there an opportunity for the Gulf Police Services Board to go back and look at its budget with a similar lens. So when you are creating your budget, you're doing it in the context of your organization, which need it rolls up to us.

2:43:34And then we have to look at it in the whole context, right? Much like our master plans. Every master plans is, Hey, here's what we need in this timeline.

2:43:43And then we had to go back and say, we can't do that in this context. Are there opportunities for GPS to take a second look at its budget?

2:43:53I would say.

2:43:55I would say the budget that the board has approved. We have worked very, very hard to have done that already. So what's really important for the community to understand is, I think, for example, between Darrell, Sarah and I and Judith, our legal counsel.

2:44:11I think we had figured out that we had about 140 years of combined experience. We didn't rely on that. We actually relied on KPMG to work with us with a comprehensive understanding of the city to give us a reasonable estimate.

2:44:26And then we phase that point in time over four years. So I think it's really important. If I was giving you the presentation, I think it's really important for the community that we take into account the importance of the community.

2:44:41And I think that we have to calibrate expectations. So my, if I have one reservation about the budget presented is we're taking four years to phase in point in time recommendations.

2:44:53So we're going to be in four years where we should be today. And I think the community really needs to understand that on most days, and I think today's probably a similar and I know the mayor seen me do this before, but through you Mr.

2:45:07Mr. Mayor, I think we have a lot of work. Most days we have 10 people available to take frontline calls in this city for 150,000. If we have two significant calls, we have six.

2:45:20If we have a couple of car accidents, we have four, and that's three, that's three or four calls. We have about 200, 250 a day, and nobody gets lunches or gets a break to go to the bathroom.

2:45:30And we have about 10 people. So the budget presented. My concern is we're taking four years when I would have a greater level of comfort if it was two or three.

2:45:41But the reality is the big portion of this budget is the investment we're making to develop a supportive staffing model.

2:45:50Right now we're not appropriately funding our WSIB commitment. So there's presumptive legislation in the province that says if I'm first responder, police fire EMS, if they find themselves with post traumatic stress disorder as a result of their work,

2:46:05we don't have the ability to staff that. So if I'm diagnosed with an operational stress injury like that, and I go home for a year, there's no backfill.

2:46:15So we have fewer and fewer and fewer people available to go to more and more and more calls, more and more traumatic calls.

2:46:22And I've said this in the board meeting and I really encourage everyone to use to watch it. We are breaking human beings across this industry, because we're not appropriately funding it.

2:46:32So I could go on at length, but I'm going to stop there because I could certainly go on and give you more information, but I'll stop there.

2:46:41Thank you, Chief Kobe through you, Marigold, three, just a couple more. And Chief Kobe, you know, I'm a huge supporter of both police services.

2:46:49I have a lot of increases, which is we're just really struggling with the overall context of the budget and the and the pressures on residents.

2:46:58So no argument that the officers need to be supported. No argument at all.

2:47:04I just had a quick question for you around the implementation of next generation 911.

2:47:10I'm wondering through through you, Marigold, three, if Chief Kobe can just provide a little description of what that means, because I understand last year there was a 1.0717 million dollar grant from federal funding.

2:47:25I know we had put a million dollars in for that last year, then you got the grant so then it went to the reserve.

2:47:32So what's the full scope of that project and are there opportunities for additional grants?

2:47:38So I think Deputy Gates, I might ask you to contribute to that given your work there.

2:47:47Thanks to you, Mr. Chair. The grant that came in had an expiry of March 31, 2024.

2:48:00So getting the infrastructure in place for I would say almost every service in the province was not was not probable. So the grant.

2:48:09We use part of the grant and now we're leveraging the grant again going into 2024 and 2025.

2:48:15So the grant is coming at a second time and Sarah might be able to articulate how much we use of the grant and there is more grant coming.

2:48:24But the NG 911 grant funding is still a mix and we haven't got all the final figures for it yet.

2:48:32I can say for anyone if they want to know what NG 911 is this next generation 911, we are mandated to upgrade our communications centers.

2:48:39And with that mandate to upgrade, we are trying to put a new infrastructure, some of which is covered by by the province because they are mandating it.

2:48:50But it's still a work in progress as we go forward.

2:48:53Okay, thanks very much.

2:48:57Let's go to Councillor Allt please.

2:49:01Thank you very much, Mayor Guthrie and Chief Kobe at all. Thank you very much for answering the questions.

2:49:06Chief Kobe answered some of my question when you were talking about WSIB and self funded. I was wondering if you could please outline what we're talking about in total dollar costs for overtime and support for that particular fund because it is quite substantial.

2:49:26Through you, Mr. Mayor and Sarah, I'll make come to you for some refinement but Councillor Allt with your indulgence, could I just set the table for two minutes so our Council understands what presumptive legislation is because I'm not sure everyone does.

2:49:45I won't do that if time doesn't allow it though.

2:49:48I think it's quite appropriate because it does affect also paramedics and fire I believe.

2:49:52Okay, so through you, Mr. Mayor. So in in April of 2016, the Government of Ontario passed a law that basically says if a first responder is diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, it is all it is automatically presumed to be related to their work.

2:50:11So it is and that's in recognition for the fact that first responders go to exponentially more trauma. They deal with many more traumatic incidents day in and day out over and over again.

2:50:24So the government introduced a law that said it is deemed to be work related to give Council an idea that the impact so it was introduced in 2016.

2:50:35So we took from January 1, 2017 until July 31 of this year. And during that period of time, the members of the Guelph Police Service serving our community have gone to over 1000 sudden deaths or homicides.

2:50:5311 of those cases involving children under 577 deaths by suicide 106 accidental overdoses and over 1800 other deaths.

2:51:04Last year this year in 2023 in a 48 hour period, our members went to three deaths by suicide. And in a three week period investigated the deaths of two children under five years old.

2:51:1911,000 domestic assault. So there's the cumulative impact of five years. So this is the trauma that our members continue to endure. The law says that if they are if they are diagnosed with PTSD as a relation to this, it's deemed to be work related, but we never budgeted for that.

2:51:40So there's no WSAV budget that aligns with that cost. So as we have about a 10% vacancy rate for folks on long term very understandable needed medical leave.

2:51:54There's no backfill for those people. So we had about 75,000 calls last year we're projecting around 90,000 this year, fewer and fewer people are going to more and more calls.

2:52:06And so that's what's happened. So the supportive staffing program that the board has endorsed for moving forward. If someone in service to our community is diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and by law, it's a WSIB leave after a year on a WSIB leave after a year on a medical leave like that.

2:52:30A member, we can staff against that position. So we can we're not relying on operational funding to cover the funding deficit that we never appropriately funded WSIB. So that's the background.

2:52:45Councillor Allt, any questions as Sarah gives us the actual number for next year?

2:52:54No, I think that I'm looking forward or not looking forward to Sarah's number, if you please.

2:53:00So through you, Mr Mayor to Councillor Allt for the WSIB support of staffing obligations, it would be just under 1.1 million that we would be adding. And I'll just add to that. As part of this budget considering this the staffing additions both for the supporting staffing model and

2:53:18and the growth positions or the new positions, we have held our overtime budget at a million. So our overtime budgets been at a million dollars for several years.

2:53:30And actuals have come in over that amount for several years. Historically, that's been offset by salary gapping.

2:53:42But it's just it's not sustainable to do that. So we're we've held our overtime budget flat in response.

2:53:55Thank you. I think that's important information for both Councillors and the community. That's why I asked for it to be expanded upon.

2:54:01And through you, Mr Mayor to Councillor Allt, there's a document called Staying Visible Staying Connected for Life. It was written by the panel of experts for the Ontario Corners Office.

2:54:16That report, like I really urge Council and I urge our community and our media partners to read it, because I don't expect the community to take my word for this, like a panel of experts have said that these staffing gaps are contributing to a significant amount of work.

2:54:32And that the staff is a systemic deterrent to disclosure of mental health issues, create significant barriers to those who need access and maintain proper care paths and uphold a false expectation of fit for duty capacity that perpetuates stigma and self self stigma surrounding mental health and occupational stress injury.

2:54:50And I think the reality of these staffing gaps must be confronted. So this is I don't want the community to take the word Kobe's word for it. I really urge you to read these documents, all of which can be provided can be viewed on the public.

2:55:05The board package that the board has made public to the community.

2:55:07Okay, thank you. I just done I'm doing a circle here back. Okay, I'll just finish. I'll go to Rodrigo for circling and then I'm going to go to Karan and then I have one question and that looks like it's it then Billings. Okay.

2:55:25Thank you. And through you, Mayor Guthrie, Chief Kobe, I am aware that a significant portion of police time is spent addressing mental health issues and issues related to addictions and poverty and homelessness in wealth.

2:55:41Could you let me know as part of these, the requested increases, will there be more capacity for for social workers or people that are to support police officers in addressing these concerns.

2:55:56Yes, so thank you for that. Through you, Mr. Mayor. So the budget approved by the board will allow us to do a number of things. First,

2:56:03in addition to the downtown resource officer, everyone knows Connor already in addition to Connor, we will be able to have another resource who is dedicated to the downtown. In addition to that, we have with the board support will be funding

2:56:22an additional impact worker who will be with our members to support the businesses are most vulnerable and our residents in the downtown. So we're trying to do a proactive approach to that.

2:56:36We can't fund that it's not sustainable forever, but we have included funding for that additional position for the course of this four year budget, at which point we'd have to reassess how that moves forward after that.

2:56:51But that so the budget that's approved does involve some resource enhancements.

2:56:56But the resource enhancements are they're being phased in over four years. So if we were to fully embrace and implement the KPMG recommendations in one or two years, it would have a much greater service enhancement, then we're going to be able to do.

2:57:12Well, at the same time, providing much needed support to people who need time away from work for operational stress injuries.

2:57:20Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. And I believe that my constituents would also appreciate having that additional downtown resource officer and that additional impact team member in the in the service. Thank you. Thank you, chief.

2:57:34All right. Well, thank you. You just asked my two questions. So now I don't have to go. So thank you.

2:57:39Brian Billings and Albusate.

2:57:42A quick question. I heard you mentioned recently about the investment in next gen 911. And I know we've allocated funds for that in the past, even when I was sitting on the police services board.

2:57:54So I'm just wondering if this is a next gen next gen or we are finalizing several phases. Is this an upgrade? What's changed in the last 10 years? Because I actually thought we had already done the necessary investments for that line item.

2:58:13No, so this is new investments. That might be something through Mr. Mayor, the Chancellor Karen, is a budget board thing because I don't want to get this wrong for you. So I might want to include Jonathan.

2:58:26I think it's a little bit more Salt Lake versus.

2:58:33Trying to not do that question justice. Is that something that.

2:58:36Let's do that. And so we can keep things moving along. Yeah. Thanks.

2:58:40Billings then boost tool.

2:58:45Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to go back to the.

2:58:48We're about 10% right now.

2:58:51And so I was just wondering over the years,

2:58:53the numbers have gone up.

2:58:54So with the supporting staff program,

2:58:59is it leveling off or like are we making any headway

2:59:03with the supporting staff program?

2:59:10So I would say what the supportive staffing program

2:59:14will allow us to do is to mitigate the increasing costs

2:59:20and trend.

2:59:21So right now, so I'm looking at a slide

2:59:26that was at the budget presentation

2:59:29that I keep referring to.

2:59:30Last year, we were at about 70,000 hours

2:59:34of time loss due to medical absences.

2:59:37So at 2000, that's about 35 FTEs right there.

2:59:41So what we're trying to do is stop the increase

2:59:46in those who need time away.

2:59:51And we're very confident that the support of staffing

2:59:53is a big, big, it's an essential part of that.

2:59:56We're lucky right now, 10% is relatively low.

3:00:01I think in the police comparator group in the province,

3:00:04that probably, there's probably 10 to 20 is an average.

3:00:08So we're not the lowest,

3:00:11but we're trying to mitigate the risks of that

3:00:13before we get 14, 15, 16%,

3:00:16which can happen in a very, very short period of time.

3:00:21Okay, and then also the downtown.

3:00:26So you mentioned the impact worker,

3:00:29that's coming out of operating reserve, correct?

3:00:32That's not an increase to the budget.

3:00:36That's correct, no.

3:00:37Now, Chancellor Billings, just through Mr. Mayor,

3:00:40I see Darrell had his hand up.

3:00:41So before we go to the downtown,

3:00:43I wanna make sure, Darrell,

3:00:44did you have something else on the support of staff?

3:00:47If I may, through you, Mr. Mayor, to Councillor Billings.

3:00:50If I could just spend on the chief's response

3:00:53with regards to a presentable legislation

3:00:56and those that are off.

3:00:57We have proactive strategies that we've engaged in recently.

3:01:01So I don't want you to just think that we're just,

3:01:03people are just going off

3:01:04and then we're not trying to prevent that.

3:01:05So we're trying to be very proactive.

3:01:07We hired a wellness coordinator,

3:01:09almost two years ago now, she's having impact.

3:01:12We've a health safety advisory put in place

3:01:13and we are expanding access to psychological services

3:01:18and counseling.

3:01:19And we've become very proactive with a safeguarding program

3:01:21where we're assessing our members as we go.

3:01:24This I see is a very positive move

3:01:29where we're trying to prevent or identify issues

3:01:33before they occur to get the proper supports in place.

3:01:36So rather than have somebody go off,

3:01:38we're trying to prevent them from going off

3:01:40or reduce the time that they're off in the first place.

3:01:42That strategy will take a couple of years

3:01:44to see what it bears in the end.

3:01:48Okay.

3:01:52And through you, Mr. Mayor,

3:01:53with respect to the downtown, Councillor Billings.

3:01:55So yes, the impact worker that the board has chosen

3:02:00to support, so that funding will come

3:02:02from our operational reserve.

3:02:06As you're aware, we're allowed to keep up

3:02:07to a 5% operating reserve.

3:02:10And so that's not impacting our operating budget,

3:02:13but rather coming from those reserves

3:02:15to support that program.

3:02:17And you're going to do that for the next four years,

3:02:19taking it from reserve?

3:02:22Yes, that's correct.

3:02:24And aren't the impact workers paid with provincial dollars?

3:02:31Well, essentially we'll be, so yes, the impact workers,

3:02:35they are employees of CMHA.

3:02:37So we've developed this very closely with Ms. Fishburne.

3:02:42So they'll continue to be employees of CMHA.

3:02:45We will provide the funding required to CMHA

3:02:49so then they can add an additional mental health worker

3:02:53who will be embedded with our members.

3:02:55And rather than our traditional impact approach,

3:02:58which has been a crisis response,

3:03:00this additional resource will work daily with our folks

3:03:04supporting the downtown community primarily.

3:03:08So having an ability to respond to crisis if required,

3:03:12but also seeking to have a more proactive approach

3:03:16for our folks downtown who need that support.

3:03:21Okay, and last question through Mr. Mayor.

3:03:23I think 2024 it says six uniform and two civilian positions

3:03:29are in the budget.

3:03:31That's correct?

3:03:32That's correct.

3:03:33Okay, so what is that?

3:03:36Is that a 2% increase in staff, three?

3:03:39What percentage is that?

3:03:43From an FTE perspective increase?

3:03:48Yes.

3:03:51Sarah, are you able to,

3:03:52we can put that on the budget board.

3:03:53I don't know if we want,

3:03:54do we know that on the fly there, Sarah?

3:04:01So the reason why I'm asking chief

3:04:03is because with the supporting staff program,

3:04:07and if say we,

3:04:10because we have the increasing trend,

3:04:13if we started to make headway,

3:04:16then the 25, 26, 27 budget,

3:04:19then with those numbers as far as new hires come down then?

3:04:24Yeah, so what we would do,

3:04:26and that's an excellent question.

3:04:28Thank you for that, councillor Billings.

3:04:31So with our supportive staffing model,

3:04:34if say for example, with all the work that we're doing,

3:04:37as if we're able to return someone to work

3:04:41through the process,

3:04:42then we would absorb that through regular attrition

3:04:46or reduction in future hires.

3:04:48So right now, if we have 10% off,

3:04:50if we're able to help four or five people come back to work,

3:04:54then either for retirements or future hires,

3:04:58we'd absorb that through regular attrition to mitigate that.

3:05:05Okay, thanks chief.

3:05:08And Pusatil please.

3:05:09Thank you very much and through the mayor to the chief.

3:05:12Just a quick question about the revenue side

3:05:14of the operating budget, the grants there,

3:05:17can you tease that out a bit for me?

3:05:19Are those core operating grants, are they one-off grants?

3:05:22And my question is whether or not

3:05:25you have seen a reduction in those amounts

3:05:28from other levels of government,

3:05:30is that a decreasing amount in terms of transfers?

3:05:36Thank you for that, through you, Mr. Mayor.

3:05:38Sarah, do you want to take that one?

3:05:42Through you, Mr. Mayor, to the councillor.

3:05:46The grants included in our operating budget

3:05:48are ongoing grants that we have multi-year contracts for.

3:05:55There are one-time grants that we apply to

3:05:58that aren't reflected.

3:05:59So basically they come in, expenditure equals the revenue

3:06:03and they're one-time in nature.

3:06:05So the program that they fund ends.

3:06:08In terms of the question as to whether or not

3:06:10we've seen reductions in our grant revenue,

3:06:14I would say right now we're in the middle

3:06:17of a lot of our contracts.

3:06:18And we identified that as a risk to our budget,

3:06:22that funding could be changed upon renewal.

3:06:27So I can't say that we've necessarily seen

3:06:31a reduction in these grants,

3:06:32but I don't know what will come in future years.

3:06:37Is that your question?

3:06:39Yes, and the reason I ask that question is,

3:06:42in the city's budget we have the pill,

3:06:45but I'm not clear on the local boards and shared services.

3:06:48If there are reductions in operating grants,

3:06:52transfer payments and so on through other levels

3:06:55of government, that, you know,

3:06:56that bottom that are being pushed down

3:06:58into operating budgets that come forward to us.

3:07:01So that's the reason I'm asking that

3:07:03and I'll ask our staff whether or not in the budget process,

3:07:06that is something that is reflected.

3:07:08It's like roll up the ramp.

3:07:10It's what's happening to municipalities,

3:07:12but also to local boards and shared services.

3:07:15Thank you.

3:07:23Thanks, Councillor Bustil.

3:07:24And that's a good heads up to the others for that idea.

3:07:27Thank you.

3:07:29Is there any other questions then on police?

3:07:32Okay, mine were asked.

3:07:34So perfect.

3:07:36Thank you.

3:07:38We'll leave it from there.

3:07:39We appreciate your answers to Chief and Deputy and Sarah.

3:07:44Thank you very much for joining us today.

3:07:46And if there's any follow up questions,

3:07:47I'm sure they'll have.

3:07:49Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

3:07:50And please feel free for budget town halls

3:07:53when we're available to participate if required or wanted.

3:07:58Okay. Thank you very much.

3:07:59Appreciate it.

3:08:01All right.

3:08:03We're gonna move right along then to library is next.

3:08:10Let's see if we can get those on the screen for us

3:08:16or included.

3:08:18And I'm just gonna give a heads up to our county friends

3:08:22and to everybody else here as well.

3:08:24Lunch is being provided.

3:08:26So I would imagine just as a heads up that

3:08:31we'll get through the library questions

3:08:33and then we will take the break for lunch.

3:08:36Lunch will be a half an hour.

3:08:39And then we'll come back and that might give you the time

3:08:41as well for our county friends to be ready

3:08:45with full compliment of staff.

3:08:46So, okay.

3:08:50And Steve, your camera has just jumped on.

3:08:52Thank you very much for joining.

3:08:54Steve, can you hear me okay?

3:08:56Thumbs up if you can hear me.

3:08:57Thank you, mayor.

3:08:58I am here for you.

3:08:59Okay. Well, that's very nice.

3:09:02Well, I never went else in the room too.

3:09:03Okay. Oh, okay.

3:09:05There's Dan as well.

3:09:06Hi Dan, thank you for joining us.

3:09:08And we can hear you as well.

3:09:09So thank you very much.

3:09:11Okay. So questions then.

3:09:14I had a couple of questions myself

3:09:16but is there anybody else that has some questions

3:09:18in regards to the library before I go?

3:09:22Okay. Councillor Bousenthal.

3:09:25Yes, thank you.

3:09:26And through the mayor, thank you for being here.

3:09:29This is a question I'm going to be asking

3:09:31all of the local boards.

3:09:32So in the grants in your revenue,

3:09:34can you tease that out a bit for me?

3:09:36Are those one-off grants or are they core operating grants?

3:09:39And has the public library seen a reduction

3:09:42or identified it as a risk

3:09:45that there is a potential of reductions in that line?

3:09:49And can you quantify that or if not at a later date?

3:09:55Through you mayor to Councillor Bousenthal.

3:09:58That's a really good question.

3:10:00The library depends on something called the PLOG,

3:10:03the Public Library Operating Grant.

3:10:06It has stayed the same for many years.

3:10:09Okay. Since at least the late 1980s or early 1990s

3:10:14and it's an amount of $167,000.

3:10:17So we do depend on that.

3:10:18All right.

3:10:20There were rumors at one point that it might not be too stable

3:10:23but at this point we're still getting it.

3:10:25There has been advocacy on the part of other library

3:10:28organizations and associations to increase that amount

3:10:32because it's no longer reflective

3:10:34of the community that we're serving.

3:10:35It should be much larger, but at this point,

3:10:39it looks, well, we'll wait and see.

3:10:41It should come in in the next month or two.

3:10:43Okay. But as I said, it's $167,000.

3:10:46Other than that, there are other small grants

3:10:48we might apply to service clubs, things like that.

3:10:51But I mean, there's nothing as substantial as that amount.

3:10:55Thank you.

3:10:57Thank you.

3:10:59Councillor Gibson is next and then I'll go to a Rourke

3:11:04and then Kate.

3:11:06Okay. Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor.

3:11:08Appreciate you joining us today, Mr. Kraft, Mr. Aikens.

3:11:12I just have to ask a question

3:11:14and it's a holistic question

3:11:15because this is a very difficult budget.

3:11:18The, I did a little bit.

3:11:20So the future is uncertain, but the past is certain.

3:11:23We can track costs, we can track things

3:11:25like budgets over the last years.

3:11:26And I went back and looked at 2018

3:11:29when we were talking about the new library,

3:11:31the business case specifically, page 88.

3:11:34When we looked at the cost of the library service in 2018,

3:11:39the Guelph public library budget was 5.69 million in 2018.

3:11:44And at the time when we were doing our business case analysis,

3:11:47the prediction was 2.2 million in additional operating costs

3:11:52to deliver the public library services to Guelph.

3:11:55So for a total of 7.86 million,

3:11:58that was the projected cost of bringing on the new library.

3:12:03So I have to ask the question five short years later,

3:12:06we're in 2023 now and your budget is already sitting

3:12:08at 12.3 million.

3:12:10So a greater than 100% increase

3:12:13in your operating budget from 2018 to 2023.

3:12:16And we're projecting another $5 million addition

3:12:19before 2027.

3:12:22It looks like the budget for the Guelph public library

3:12:25has grown by almost,

3:12:26it will have grown by almost 300% from 2018 to 2027.

3:12:30This is a big question.

3:12:33I'm not slinging arrows,

3:12:34I'm just simply asking the question,

3:12:35what are the primary drivers?

3:12:37We haven't started really building the new library yet,

3:12:39I guess we have, but we can plan for it.

3:12:41But what are the primary drivers

3:12:42for those escalation and costs between 2018 and today?

3:12:46And then obviously projecting into the next five years.

3:12:52Thank you for that question.

3:12:53And through you, Mayor to the Councillor,

3:12:55I'd have to go back and I mean,

3:12:57give you a detailed account

3:12:58and maybe that's something that we can do

3:12:59through the budget board,

3:13:00but nevertheless, obviously compensation has increased.

3:13:05We have managed to add, I think one or two staff members

3:13:09since then, okay?

3:13:11And we are, I mean, in terms of that 10 year projection,

3:13:17that sort of thing,

3:13:18I mean, obviously the library

3:13:20is going to increase physically in size too.

3:13:22So we're going to need to add a lot of staff.

3:13:25We have kept staff suppressed,

3:13:27okay, artificially suppressed over the years, okay?

3:13:33To, we're not necessarily meeting the demands of the public,

3:13:37especially after COVID, okay?

3:13:39Our services, I mean, we're somewhat,

3:13:43what, reduced during COVID,

3:13:45but nevertheless, they're back in full force.

3:13:47And we do need to accommodate the public

3:13:49and still provide that excellent service that we're used to.

3:13:52We are still investing in people

3:13:53and service enhancements, things like that, okay?

3:13:56So apart from that, I mean,

3:13:57I can't really explain without looking at

3:14:00the budget in those details.

3:14:01I mean, materials have increased substantially, okay?

3:14:06For example, and I said this before to council,

3:14:10books are probably like $40 or something or other,

3:14:13the average hardcover books, something like that,

3:14:14but digital services have increased substantially, okay?

3:14:18So a digital book is often two times

3:14:20or three times the amount, the cost of a book, all right?

3:14:24We have streaming services that we need to provide

3:14:26and we also have other programmings and things.

3:14:28So, I mean, we are a large urban library system

3:14:33and we're serving a large urban public, all right?

3:14:35That's the only explanation that I can give for you

3:14:37at this moment, so.

3:14:39Yeah, that's okay, I appreciate it.

3:14:41I don't know, I sprung this question on you without notice,

3:14:44so I apologize.

3:14:46What I'll do is I'll commit to putting it on the budget board

3:14:50and again, I'll reiterate it.

3:14:52Again, we've seen an escalation in our delivery of costs

3:14:55from 5.69 million in 2018 to 12.3 million today

3:15:00over a five-year period and we're projecting another

3:15:02$5 million increase to the operating budget, but toward 2027.

3:15:06I think I just would like a bit more of a,

3:15:11in retrospect of drivers for those costs,

3:15:14because it is another big ask in 2023, 24.

3:15:18Understandably, we are building towards that new library,

3:15:21but we have to have some accounting for the,

3:15:24you know, the 100% increase in costs since 2018.

3:15:28Thank you, I'll direct that to staff

3:15:30and maybe I'll type it on the budget board later, thank you.

3:15:32I appreciate that, thank you.

3:15:36Now, Councillor O'Rourke has a question

3:15:39that's more directed to staff specific to the library,

3:15:42so why don't you do that and then that way,

3:15:44our guests from the library can at least hear it

3:15:46and be involved in hearing the question and the answer.

3:15:49And so you can go ahead.

3:15:50Great, thanks, Margot.

3:15:51So through you to staff, I'm just curious,

3:15:53the library's asking that instead of a transfer

3:15:58to reserve for future staff capacity,

3:16:02so to offset some future operating funds,

3:16:04that they be able to use those funds now to start hiring people

3:16:08who can help manage, you know,

3:16:10the transfer to the new library and all that stuff,

3:16:13which is fair.

3:16:15So I'm curious though, right now,

3:16:18when there are funds in the reserves,

3:16:21there's investment income on those funds.

3:16:24So we're not talking about small amounts, right?

3:16:26If we're drawing out $500,000 a million dollars.

3:16:30So how does that impact sort of the final ramp up

3:16:35for the operating costs?

3:16:39And do we have any idea what the loss is

3:16:43in terms of investment income

3:16:44and is there an offset for that?

3:16:50So through the mayor to councillor Roark,

3:16:54I believe that the amount that is being reduced

3:16:58through this transition to this phase in is 1.6 million.

3:17:03So we have estimated investment income

3:17:06based on the reserve balances,

3:17:08not the individual pieces within.

3:17:11So I could get back to you

3:17:12in terms of the investment income impact

3:17:15on that transfer, but our budget is built

3:17:18on the kind of the average opening

3:17:21and closing balance of the reserve.

3:17:23So in totality, it would have been,

3:17:26you know, addressed or included in the budget,

3:17:29but it's just in the moment, I wouldn't have that handy.

3:17:34Thanks. So through you, Mayor Guthrie.

3:17:35I'm just trying to understand what the impacts are

3:17:39of the request, you know, the change that's requested.

3:17:52Someone else want to jump in there?

3:17:53I thought you guys were talking to each other.

3:17:54So no, no, you're good.

3:17:55Okay. Okay.

3:17:57All right. I see no more questions for the library.

3:18:00Oh, Kateen, I'm so sorry.

3:18:01I did have you down and down

3:18:03or my apologies I had that written down as well.

3:18:05Go ahead, Kateen.

3:18:06No worries through to the mayor to library stuff.

3:18:11Mr. Kraft, I was just wondering of the boards.

3:18:16I think the library is one of the ones

3:18:18that actually does some raising outside

3:18:21of all of the other revenue sources.

3:18:23How much fundraising is addressed in your budget?

3:18:31Through you, Mayor to council, Kateen.

3:18:33That's a really good question.

3:18:34I mean, we have an annual fundraising campaign

3:18:36that perhaps and don't hold me to this,

3:18:38but I can get solid figures for something like maybe

3:18:42$40, $50, $60,000, something like that,

3:18:45depending on the donor of the year, right?

3:18:46We have received some, you know, larger amounts

3:18:49in previous years and that goes into

3:18:51what we call the quest fund.

3:18:53But I mean, like we really don't,

3:18:55it depends on the weather, okay?

3:18:57And the public and the donor, that sort of thing.

3:18:59So I mean, like it's something that we hope is better

3:19:04in other years than that.

3:19:05And then some years were disappointed, okay?

3:19:08So.

3:19:09So it doesn't really, there's no way to really tell

3:19:13how much is gonna come in your budget.

3:19:14That's correct.

3:19:15And as I said, it goes into our quest fund

3:19:17so that money we are putting aside

3:19:18for the new central library.

3:19:20So it's not part of our operating budget

3:19:23is what I'm telling you.

3:19:25Oh, okay.

3:19:26That's all I need to say.

3:19:32Okay, thank you, Councillor Caitlin.

3:19:33Downer, please.

3:19:35Thank you.

3:19:36Just want to correct Councillor Gibson.

3:19:37I did take a quick look at the 2018 budget for the library

3:19:41and it was over 9 million.

3:19:42So just over 9 million.

3:19:45So just to.

3:19:46From 2018 to 19.

3:19:48So the 2019 budget was not yet.

3:19:50So they asked for $3 million ask.

3:19:52Okay, but that can be corrected by step.

3:19:54I just looked at that.

3:19:55It's not corrected.

3:19:56I know the budget from 2018.

3:19:57The 2019 budget was 9 million

3:19:59because they asked for that increase.

3:20:00Okay, got it. No back and forth.

3:20:04It's cool. I know you know one's like you're not like angry at each other anything. I just don't want back and forth

3:20:09The only one getting angry is me right now because you guys are bantering back and forth

3:20:15Look how angry I am look at me. I just had a look at the 2018 budget. That's a question. Yeah, so I just want to confirm around

3:20:23I just want to confirm this this

3:20:28The way we've phased in this

3:20:33That this trend this is a transfer of

3:20:37500,000 from what we would just over 500,000 of what we would normally put into that reserve

3:20:44and if we decided not to do that

3:20:49500,000 into that library into the library

3:20:53Then would that then come back to the city or would we have to make that decision to into the city's budget that would then add

3:21:01500,000 back into the city's budget. Is that not the case? This is a transfer of lines from the from ours to the library

3:21:12so through the mayor

3:21:15If if council was to make that decision that there would be an additional so if you were to reduce

3:21:22I'm just if this is your question if you reduce the library's budget by 500,000

3:21:28Then there would be a secondary

3:21:32Decision on if that money would be on the bottom line of the of the overall operating budget or if that would be money put back into the

3:21:42The service enhancement reserve fund so that would be an additional decision

3:21:47Yeah, so that if we take it out of there that we got to decide whether we want to continue

3:21:52That much of in the strategy or not to put it back into the city's budget

3:21:57I just want to sort of make it clear around that decision. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other counselors with any questions?

3:22:07No, okay, so then actually a couple of mine were already asked. It's good that I can going last today

3:22:12So I guess the thing that jumped out at me was I think and please correct me if I'm wrong

3:22:18Is it four or five new staff members that you're looking to to add this year at a cost of like over half a million dollars?

3:22:26That's correct. Okay, would be five staff members. Okay for approximately five hundred thousand dollars

3:22:33Okay, and why?

3:22:37We need to prepare for the new central library. Okay, so right now. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Steve. I interrupted you go ahead

3:22:44So yeah, I was going to say I mean like right now. I mean like staff are overextended. I think at this point

3:22:48I mean, I think you can appreciate that post COVID the nature of our services have

3:22:54Changed or I mean become focused on other things occasionally and so managers who need to be preparing for the new central library are doing work on the side of their desk that

3:23:04They shouldn't be okay, they should be focusing on the new central library. So therefore mean like we're focusing on the other HR issues

3:23:10That are that are obviously important to customer service. So if we hire these staff, for example, I mean like that will take a burden off managers and

3:23:19Provide that excellent level of service that you're expecting. Okay. Say for example

3:23:25We need an archivist and a

3:23:28Records manager. Okay. Well one thing that we want to do in the new central library is to

3:23:34We have we'll have a new archives. Okay a new a larger state of the art

3:23:39Archives what we want to do is take on some of the records from the clerk's office

3:23:43I mean like with their approval and with your approval as well. Nevertheless, that's under negotiation

3:23:47But still we need to prepare for that. Okay taking on and collating and curating those records. That's a large project that

3:23:55That I'm giving you an example of so

3:23:58If we don't even if we don't hire those those four or five, okay

3:24:02Then we are one year behind in terms of preparing for that new central library. So and we want to open in 2026 and it certainly be prepared for 2027, you know, the the birthday of the city the 200 anniversary. So,

3:24:15Okay, thank you. So what is thank you for that answer. So

3:24:21What is the expected overall impact

3:24:25To the budget that your budget

3:24:28when

3:24:29When the ribbon is cut then

3:24:32Because obviously what's striking me is what was stated that the community should prepare for under the business case a few years ago

3:24:42That's not going to happen

3:24:44Like we're way past that

3:24:47So do you have an actual impact number for us today of the actual costs of operating this new library for when it opens

3:24:57Because I think I think you've tried to and in your answer that you just gave Steve you made sense in the fact that you're trying to

3:25:05You know slowly add things as we go. So there isn't a massive hit at one time. It's a slow, you know

3:25:12You're slowly inserting things over a years until you actually cut the ribbon

3:25:18But what is that total cost going to be? Thank you, Mayor. That's a really good question and I understand your concern for this. You're right in the

3:25:322018 business case prepared by Bruce Peever. You've heard his name already once before today from KPMG

3:25:38He was estimating 2.2 million but now remember that report by the time we open in

3:25:452027 will be almost well, it will be 10 years old

3:25:49Okay, and while I'm sure that KPMG did sort of build in an inflation factor

3:25:54I mean they didn't prepare for COVID or the you know the immense inflation that we are having experiencing today, especially in terms of compensation and you know

3:26:02Pay scales that kind of thing but nevertheless, I mean like I think I mean the report that was included in part of your package

3:26:10Estimates that are operating, you know

3:26:13What increase for that new central library and remember the new central library also supports the other branches as well

3:26:20I mean that's part of its

3:26:23Use okay profile. It's going to be approximately 2.9 million. Okay, and now some of that

3:26:28Okay is we're not able to completely

3:26:32What predict because there was a your excuse me there are utilities in there. There are things that are outside like you know heating

3:26:39Water that kind of thing but nevertheless to we need to estimate

3:26:44Or factor in at least you know increased security because it's a larger building and

3:26:50Basic things like maintenance and cleaning, you know support staff sort of thing now whether that's on our side of the ledger or on the city side because we do

3:26:58Use city staff and then comp the you know, there's a no line. I know we charge back. Okay

3:27:04That is what the estimated cost is going to be the impact. I think that's what you're asking approximately 2.9 million

3:27:10Well, maybe I know you're kind of going on the fly

3:27:12So I'll let you make it get to work with staff on a budget board answer with the overall impact of what we should expect

3:27:19When we cut when the ribbon is cut for that building. That's fine

3:27:24and then my last question that dovetails into this is

3:27:28when

3:27:30council of the time agreed to

3:27:36Move forward with the new library there was a motion that was also passed

3:27:41requesting the board to do a fulsome review of operating costs and

3:27:48to

3:27:50Look to plan for ways that you could have better operating costs moving forward

3:27:55the

3:27:58The last time that was brought up at council was a couple of years ago actually and

3:28:03At the time I remember asking, you know, where is this plan dovetailing into the operation plan?

3:28:11Dovetailing into as we move forward to opening up the new library at the time the board chair said publicly that it was going to be

3:28:20Not done yet because you guys were doing a new strategic plan and

3:28:24So to date, you know, I I still haven't seen that

3:28:31operating

3:28:32plan

3:28:34dovetailed in with your own strategic plan and

3:28:37I feel like I feel like that motion of council is outstanding

3:28:42So can you let us know what's happening with that with that plan and how the board is?

3:28:50To your knowledge reviewing that

3:28:55Good question, okay, I mean I mean in terms of we are working with the operational

3:28:59I mean a budget and plan. I mean we're working with city staff to perfect it

3:29:02Okay, I mean that's one thing that I've said this morning in terms of the strategic plan the board will come up with a new strategic plan

3:29:09They're gonna start working on one in 2024. Hopefully it will parallel the cities

3:29:13You know a strategic plan but apart from that I'll have to get back to you and maybe that's a question that

3:29:19We can put on the budget board as well. So, okay

3:29:23Thank you very much appreciated. Thank you to council for asking and thank you for being here

3:29:27Oh, sorry, don't go anywhere council or work has a follow-up question and then we'll finish on that

3:29:32Thanks, we're gonna through you to mr. Kraft. I just want to ask you the same question that I asked the chief of police

3:29:37so when we do our master plans they are

3:29:41Engineers and finance people and all the people who do all the right work and they come back and they say this is what we

3:29:46Want to do in this period of time and here's how much it's going to cost

3:29:50And when it rolls back up

3:29:53we need to say we'd love to do all of it and

3:29:57We're we can't afford it and we've heard that

3:30:00Today in abundance that we're going to actually postpone over 600 million dollars of capital plans

3:30:05That they'll be pushed out that there will be positions that we had wanted to hire for very good reasons that fit with the strat plan that we cannot hire

3:30:14so

3:30:16Can the library take another look at its budget

3:30:20Understanding what the global context is right?

3:30:23So you do your budget with the lens of the library of all the things you want to do all the programming all the resources we want to offer

3:30:31And and now that it's rolled up. It is a challenge right in the overall budget context for the city and

3:30:40Is the library just as I asked chief Colby are there opportunities?

3:30:46to push out hires

3:30:48The capital is coming obviously in the new library

3:30:51But is there an opportunity for the library to also look now with a greater lens as we're seeing the reaction to the budget numbers

3:30:59Servitally so

3:31:01Can the library undertake to take a second look?

3:31:05Through you mayor to counselor or work. That's an excellent question

3:31:08I really appreciate that because you as counsel and as mayor, you know have a difficult job in making a budget

3:31:14You know the city budget work for everyone

3:31:17now

3:31:18Construction or you know digging has already begun on the site. So my fear is that if we don't I mean go ahead and hire these five staff

3:31:26For example, and just give me an opportunity to say this

3:31:28I mean, you're gonna have a completed building

3:31:31That is not ready to be open. Okay now we can always take the budget the

3:31:37Back to the board and see what they will say

3:31:39But I'm this is the conversation that we have had with them. We'll look at it again, but I'm not optimistic that I mean they'll be

3:31:46What?

3:31:49They'll certainly be open to discussion, but I'm not sure that I mean the budget will change all that much because this isn't important

3:31:54I mean build for the for the city. Okay, this has been a long time coming

3:31:57We want to make sure it's successful and I can appreciate you wanting to you know be as economical

3:32:03As possible. I mean that just to reassure you did hire a consultant

3:32:07I mean when when putting together this particular, you know staffing budget for the new central library. So

3:32:15That's the end of my statement right there, but thank you for that question. It is a good question. So, okay. Thank you

3:32:23Thank you to the both of you Dan and Steve especially you Dan you contributed a lot today. I really appreciate

3:32:30Yeah, no, I think you do the both of you and it's now we're done with the library portion. Okay. Have a great rest of the day

3:32:39all right

3:32:40so we're gonna take a break right now for

3:32:44For lunch we're gonna come back here at one o'clock. So that's 34 minutes by my clock and

3:32:51Thank you everyone for getting through

3:32:54This so far when we come back. We'll maybe

3:32:58hopefully by that time our

3:33:01Added visitor from the county can be here

3:33:03So I would say maybe get your headspace into any questions for the county around social services and that's what we'll start with when we come back

3:33:09All right. Thank you very much everyone

4:05:47This is your one minute warning everybody

4:05:50especially to

4:05:52Councillor Caitlin in Billings online one minute warning. Okay, I'm gonna call the meeting back to order

4:09:20Just wanted to ask to see if our County representatives are

4:09:31Mark

4:09:32Mark post

4:09:34Should we wait a little bit longer for Louisa to come?

4:09:41Yeah, well should do us to just continue with some other questions and then get back to you

4:09:45Would that be the best? Yes. Okay, we'll do that. No problem

4:09:50Okay, so we'll just we're just gonna continue to wait on the county social services a little bit

4:09:54As our last sort of outside board that we if we had any questions about so

4:09:59We'll just wait until our guests arrive

4:10:03So why don't we why don't we go back to all of council then on any further questions?

4:10:10Remember there is the budget board so remember that that part as well. Okay, because we could ask a thousand questions here

4:10:16But maybe they could be asked on the budget board some of them

4:10:21so anything that really needs to be kind of flushed out maybe that's kind of where I would go and

4:10:26What I would maybe do is just try to what if we could try to theme it

4:10:30So what I don't know what Councillor Cairn for example is going to ask but whatever she asks whatever theme she's asking

4:10:36Maybe we'll try to stick on that theme and then and then we can kind of go to another theme and maybe try to

4:10:42Do it align to the strategic plan like how our

4:10:45Our presentation was done in the different sections that might help a little bit

4:10:49So I'll start with council Quran and then I'll go to Galler next

4:10:54Thank You mr. Mayor and I am saving all of my specific questions any line item questions any I would like an amount on this or an

4:11:02explanation or a breakout or roll up or

4:11:05Whatever roll down

4:11:07I'm saving those all for the budget board so that we're not taking up time in the meeting today

4:11:12So all of my questions are just clarity questions because I know you like to mr. Mayor say questions of clarity questions of intent

4:11:19No intense today no specific questions today. They're all clarity questions

4:11:25Just so that I make sure that when I ask questions on the budget board, I'm framing them correctly

4:11:31So the first thing is

4:11:33Wherever we have

4:11:35service optimizations or

4:11:38Any decision or capital investment where we're expecting an ROI?

4:11:42So for example the electric bus fleet we will no longer have to pay for gas

4:11:48Is the optimization savings and the ROI

4:11:54Embedded in the project line or is that showing up somewhere else and the example is electric bus?

4:12:00Will we see the capital investment?

4:12:04Savings in fuel

4:12:07How how where will we see that on two separate lines or on one line?

4:12:12And that's just so I don't have to go looking for numbers like if I see fuel is X. I know that that includes

4:12:26Reduction

4:12:28Yes, so through the mayor

4:12:31as

4:12:32Those types of efficiencies or optimizations are part of the net operating impacts from capital

4:12:40And they've been factored in and so you won't see it on a separate line, but it is part of

4:12:46The that budget line as you described, okay, thank you

4:12:50So I know that the the capital budget is a it's a massive daunting number

4:12:56But there is some ROI

4:12:58Elsewhere in the budget so when we get to our final figures, it's all rolled up in there

4:13:02Okay, that was my clarity question

4:13:04I

4:13:06Think I heard and I just want to clarify that when we talk about water

4:13:11Water includes water resource recovery

4:13:16Water supply water distribution that the word water is a is a is more than just the provision of water

4:13:25It's everything to do with water. Is that correct?

4:13:32Through through the mayor to council

4:13:35Karan that that's correct. So when we talk about water rates, for instance, that's everything to do to deliver the water service

4:13:40Yeah, so what we used to call wastewater is wrapped up in water resources

4:13:46Yes, although the separate rates for water water wastewater, right?

4:13:50So we do keep them separately in terms of rates because they are calculated slightly differently, right?

4:13:54But in capital, I don't see a I don't see a what I don't see a wastewater

4:13:59Capital I see a water resource capital. I just want to make sure it's all included

4:14:05That would be the same thing. Yes, okay

4:14:08Thanks

4:14:10To councillor Boussateel's question

4:14:13How easy is it to create a city pill and a board pill so that we can get a consolidated pill or

4:14:21Our staff would staff recommend that we keep boards completely separate including board

4:14:27Impact levies from the province. Is it is it better to keep them separate?

4:14:36so through the mayor to council Karan I

4:14:40Think we're gonna have to take that one away if I think that needs to be thought through we would need to

4:14:48Definitely have a further conversations with all the local boards and shared services to even capture some of that information because

4:14:55not everybody builds their budgets in that same way and

4:14:59Then we'd have to think then about

4:15:02How that then translates on say a tax bill if we're actually talking about a separate levy so

4:15:09We will have to bring that back. Okay. Thank you because maybe the answer is it's just too complicated for this year

4:15:15But it's just an awareness piece that not everything in the board levy that we're seeing on our budget is

4:15:21Operating some of it actually is downloading and provincial impact

4:15:25My last question then is just a quick calculation. I know at the beginning of each budget we talk about for every million dollars

4:15:36Equals a percentage impact or an approximate a number of dollars per household per year

4:15:43Do we have that calculation? It changes every year just based on the size of the overall budget

4:15:49But for every million dollars that we take in or out of this budget

4:15:54What is the percentage impact on the overall net tax levy?

4:16:00So

4:16:02Through the mayor to counselor

4:16:04Karan

4:16:05Handy I have I have to do my I have to do the math on the flyer quick

4:16:09But handy is 2.95 million is 1% that's how tax levy impact

4:16:15I don't have it the bat like kind of the opposite way that you phrased it

4:16:19But 1% tax levy impact is 2.5 million dollars 5 million dollars sorry sorry

4:16:262.95 million it's almost 3 million 2.95 million dollars is 1% tax levy impact fantastic

4:16:34Thanks, those are all my questions

4:16:36Great. Thank you counselor crown and

4:16:41So

4:16:42Maybe what we could do and I'm so sorry. I am just trying to focus us a little bit

4:16:46So, you know how the budget is broken up into the three

4:16:49So maybe that would be the easiest way to go. Is there any questions that anyone has on the pill?

4:16:56Specific to the pill okay counselor boosted

4:17:01Thank you, sorry. I missed the the question starting

4:17:04It's not so much about the municipal pill

4:17:07But I did want to build on my colleague counselor Karan's about

4:17:11The the boards and shared services and I think you know

4:17:16I think it's an exercise that we need to do as we look to our CAO to bring forward the request for a new deal a new

4:17:23Municipal deal because our context is not just the city it includes those local services

4:17:29Local boards and services. So if there is a reduction in public health, you know through Ministry of Health

4:17:36Legislative and so on we're we're picking up that additional cost

4:17:40So I do think it's important to capture that and perhaps not for this budget year to

4:17:46To present it but to capture it as we move forward in presenting the overall

4:17:53Impact and the argument to the various levels of government

4:17:57If you can just you know, give me a yeah, I got I got that kind of thing because I think it's part of a case study to bring forward

4:18:06Yes, we nodding but just also

4:18:10Confirming verbally

4:18:12Great. Thank you

4:18:14Any other questions on just the pill? Yeah, I've got some myself too. So councillor work

4:18:19Thanks, Mary Guthrie sir. I'm struggling because I've got my questions in order of the

4:18:23documents received so I'm trying to

4:18:25Find out which ones are pill. So through you to staff

4:18:31Around the housing legislation we see a massive jump to four point six million dollars in 2024

4:18:38Is there any way we can let some of the 2023 changes work themselves out, right?

4:18:45So we've just done a bunch of hiring. We're accelerating processes

4:18:50We're knocking ourselves out to meet this housing pledge

4:18:54And so we don't actually know what's going to work in year two and three

4:19:00Is there any way to

4:19:02Not do the four point six million in 2024 because then it falls to one point eight nine in 2025

4:19:08like is there a way to smooth that out because

4:19:11Staff have just been you know racing with changing targets changing legislation changing definitions

4:19:18Can we see what the impact of the existing decisions will be and is it an opportunity to

4:19:25Just create some breathing room in the system here to see what's working

4:19:30So through the mayor to council or work

4:19:32I

4:19:34Guess the issue is we don't have any breathing room

4:19:37when we were looking at

4:19:39What the province is asking us to do in terms of delivery of permits and getting housing online

4:19:47You know they're asking us to double what we would normally what we would normally process so we didn't double our staff

4:19:54We looked carefully at what we thought might be coming in

4:19:59What staff that we needed on board right of way so when we get

4:20:05when we get an application that comes in there's a timeline that starts and

4:20:10We have to have staff already there

4:20:14When applications start coming in and we don't have any staff that's when the clock starts ticking and that's when we get penalized for

4:20:20Not being able to process it enough so

4:20:23Fast enough so we are we did look at it carefully to make sure that we were right side right sizing the staff complement

4:20:31based on those positions on when those when do we need those positions as they go through the process and

4:20:37We're also looking at

4:20:39Doing some gapping as well

4:20:40So maybe not not not hiring not budgeting for the beginning of the year

4:20:45But if we thought we didn't need them until maybe I don't know halfway through the year or three quarters through the year

4:20:51Then we would budget then and and gap to the the next year so

4:20:56We have already looked at it council or work in terms of making sure that we have the the right staff in the right place

4:21:02And we'll continue to look at that of course we as you know, we've as we mentioned last night our

4:21:09Applications we've done really well this year in terms of processing things

4:21:13But that is also contingent upon how many applications we get coming in so we'll adjust accordingly

4:21:20We're not going to hire staff if we think that in another year or so. We're not going to have the applications, but

4:21:28We based it based on what we know right now, but we will continue to monitor if that helps okay, thanks

4:21:35Councillor Gibson, please

4:21:38Thank you through mr. Mayor, and I think that's a good starting conversation

4:21:43Councillor Orrk, and I appreciate you sort of taking us there

4:21:46My questions have always been when it comes to you know

4:21:50We've sat through many sessions about the downloading and the impacts of provincial legislation on the municipal budgets

4:21:56I guess my question is real and actualized so

4:22:00There's or sorry projected and actualized so last year in budget

4:22:03We we put aside a thing 1.8 was it 1.8 mr. Mayor 1.6 1.8 million dollars for impacts on the municipal budget 1.6

4:22:12So maybe I'll start with that question

4:22:14Have we has that have those impacts been actualized or were they projected and I think I know the answer but I'll let you answer that one first

4:22:20Thanks

4:22:22Yeah, so through

4:22:23Mayor Guthrie

4:22:26They have been realized they we budgeted 1.6 million and right now as of the end of September

4:22:31We're sitting at just over 3 million in actual costs because of the exemption specifically to bill 23

4:22:38Okay, great. So that sets up my next question

4:22:40the

4:22:43When you speak to the development community and the sort of the the clouds circling that entire

4:22:49Industry are gray

4:22:51Housing costs borrowing costs there was an announcement last week Toronto developers that are laying as many as 14,000 new condos because sales are dropping off

4:22:59No one wants a half million dollar mortgage at 8% nor can they qualify?

4:23:04You're seeing a lot of you're hearing stories about people who bought two years ago

4:23:08Who are now going to the bank because their condo is ready to close and the bank is now saying you no longer qualify for that condo

4:23:14I can't afford to send you that mortgage. So they're losing hundred two hundred thousand dollar deposits

4:23:19Those externalities are happening. So I guess my question to staff

4:23:24Calibrating what we know the impacts of bill 23 are quite clear the costs that we're having to account for

4:23:32What does the housing startup?

4:23:35horizon look like

4:23:37for 2024

4:23:38I don't know what we're projecting these losses, but I'd like to have an understanding of what we

4:23:45What's projected and what can be actualized?

4:23:50So through the mayor to council Gibson. I don't have a crystal ball

4:23:54So I can't know magic wand that tells me what the future is going to look like

4:23:59We do have really good discussions though with our developers and home builders

4:24:04Trying to keep an eye on the market

4:24:06They're accessing the same

4:24:09Construction market that we are so we understand a little bit what they're up against in terms of costs and pressures supply chain issues

4:24:16Interest rates all that kind of stuff. So I

4:24:19Think what we are seeing is

4:24:23It looks like a bit of a slowdown in terms of

4:24:26You know people wanting to build things developers wanting to invest their money

4:24:31So we're again, we're trying to make sure that we are right sizing our staff

4:24:37So we don't end up with a whole bunch of staff with nothing to do

4:24:40and so I

4:24:43Can't tell you where we're gonna be a year from now

4:24:45It does look like it's slowing down and that's what we did look at when we were starting to look at staffing when we might hire

4:24:50Them going through 2024. So when the budget gets approved and say, I don't know say it's 10 staff

4:24:56We're not gonna run out in 20th on January and try and hire them all

4:25:00We're gonna wait and see where they sit in the process and to

4:25:04monitor the situation so that we're

4:25:07Hiring the right people at the right time. I will also caution that

4:25:11When we say yes now we need that person we're gonna need them in I don't know three months

4:25:16The the hiring market is still really competitive as well

4:25:21So sometimes you will go out and you might not get that person

4:25:23We're trying to keep that in mind to counsel Gibson to make sure that

4:25:28The people are there when we need them, but we don't have too many

4:25:32Maybe I think I wanted to rephrase my question if it's okay with you through mr.

4:25:36Merrick away from staffing levels and more towards the hard costs of development

4:25:40That's the municipalities are being asked to account for so specifically on a new home or a new condo or whatever

4:25:47There's usually a development charge that we used to collect that would cover most of that cost now

4:25:51It's far beneath that and we are now using our own capital budget our own our own reserve funds to supplement that growth

4:25:58Do we have a projection on how many housing starts?

4:26:01We'll be coming online in 2024 that we need to set aside that reserve fund those reserve budgets for and is that a

4:26:11I'm not saying I'm asking us to shortcut that I'm not asking to underfund it

4:26:15I'm just saying is that a movable target?

4:26:17Will it will it appears a variance if it's not used or is it something that we believe we're already going to be in a negative variance?

4:26:24in the event that

4:26:27Let's say 2400 homes are expected online next year and only 14 of them 1400 of them happen

4:26:32What becomes of that that extra thousand homes that we thought we were gonna get but we didn't what becomes of the what becomes of the budget?

4:26:42Sure, so through the mayor

4:26:44I don't have it in terms of translating it to housing starts like you've requested

4:26:49Something that that we can be take away, but in terms of the broader budget impact

4:26:55I'd bring you back to the slide in the deck

4:26:58I don't have the number at hand, but it's the one that's it's entitled as near the end in my section about

4:27:05the growth

4:27:06reserve fund the property tax growth and the the the reserve fund line was was

4:27:14Significantly in the in the negative

4:27:16We have phased in

4:27:19the the tax and rate cost at as slow a pace as we possibly can and that does allow for then if things do slow down

4:27:27I feel like the budget reflects

4:27:32That in a sense because of the way we've budgeted I will say though

4:27:37That you know in the case where you know things don't slow down or that they more play out at the rate that we're seeing right now

4:27:48We are

4:27:49Utilizing other cash flow within the other reserves like I had described to help in the short term while

4:27:57While we see what development looks like over over the ten years, so I would not feel comfortable

4:28:04Recommending or supporting a further reduction on what we've already

4:28:09We've budgeted in terms of the hard cost there. We have really aggressively. I would say

4:28:14phased that in

4:28:15Over time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the questions caller, please

4:28:24Thank you and through your worship

4:28:26Falling up on the questions from counselor Gibson

4:28:28I was very concerned when I was looking at those slides and and so that we were operating at a deficit

4:28:36Can you help me understand? What is the impact of going above the S&P's?

4:28:41recommended 30%

4:28:43Ratio for because we have a council approved that ratio of 55%

4:28:47But then you know there's another recommendation of 30% and it looks like we're going to go over that 30% for maybe a five six year period

4:28:56What does that mean for our cost of borrowing and our credit rating?

4:29:02Sure, so through

4:29:06The mayor to council Galler

4:29:08We've been projecting kind of in that same range that you saw on the slide for a number of years

4:29:14So we don't expect that that is going to have an impact on the credit rating

4:29:18There's many factors that go into the credit rating if we got any higher than the city's limit in our policy

4:29:25I feel like that would be a different conversation with the credit rating agency

4:29:30And it's really then that credit rating that drives cost of borrowing. So we are

4:29:36I am comfortable with with the range and where the debt is sitting right now

4:29:41Okay, thank you. And as a follow-up to that I saw that in in some of the years it looked like like 2031 we might be

4:29:48You know 390 million in in debt to meet some of those goals

4:29:54Are we borrowing all of that with like is that all new debt that we would take on or are we borrowing from other reserves?

4:30:02That to to fill some of those gaps

4:30:04So through the mayor to council Galler

4:30:08our plan includes issuing 50 million of debt a year starting in 2025

4:30:15So that that debt graph is new debt that we're planning on taking on not internal borrowing debt

4:30:23And that so the plan because the last time we went out to issue debt into the market the

4:30:29Market and our advisors at the time advise that about 50 million is probably the maximum the market can bear for a city our size

4:30:35And so that's the amount that we used in terms of the planning

4:30:39When we get to those points the market might be different

4:30:43We'd be bringing that back to you in terms of the actual amount of debt in whichever year

4:30:49This is just the forecast at this point and it's in principle in terms of the debt usage

4:30:55Okay, okay, and just so that I'm clear if if council were to

4:31:00Not want to incur that debt say we we gave direction that we could only

4:31:06Build to what we can collect that year

4:31:10Then would that mean that we would not be able to meet say our housing pledge

4:31:14Because we would not have the infrastructure built just so that I understand, you know

4:31:17Why why we are going to go into that amount of that and why we don't just say well

4:31:24We could only raise

4:31:2542 million this year so we are going to build roads to that amount

4:31:30But you know even though we have a plan to build 70 million worth of roads

4:31:34So through the counts, sorry through the mayor to council go

4:31:44Currently the debt that we have earmarked is primarily the net new debt that we have earmarked that's not already been approved is for

4:31:55Infrastructure renewal is

4:31:58specifically the FM woods and then the

4:32:02Also the transit and fleet facility

4:32:05And so

4:32:07It's not just as simple as I would say is that we wouldn't meet the housing pledge

4:32:10I there was definitely debt capacity we could we kept in the for growth

4:32:16But there's a mix of projects within that portfolio. And so I think it would be more fair to say

4:32:23that certain projects would need to be

4:32:26Deferred until there was enough reserve fund capacity then to actually

4:32:34Do that project so I think it's something we'll have to take away

4:32:37Maybe I can reform that in a bit more of a concise response for you, but I

4:32:43It say it would definitely mean deferral of projects

4:32:48And then I think what I would be looking for through your worship is what is the cost if we were to defer

4:32:54So say we we choose not to do a project and we wait say five years on it

4:32:59But then we have to repair the existing facility or you know, it's going to be 30 40 percent higher by the time we get to it

4:33:06So that's what I'm trying to understand through your worship another question

4:33:12Along these lines

4:33:14In

4:33:20Okay, okay. Okay. Thank you your worship along these lines

4:33:24I noticed that there was the rescoping of your quote from four lanes to two lanes

4:33:29So I am wondering what is the cost to to to the city to do that?

4:33:35Does that mean that then down the road?

4:33:38we're going to have to incur the cost of going to four lanes maybe in another 10 years and

4:33:44Will that actually be more expensive to do it at that time or will there be?

4:33:49You know other negative

4:33:52Economic impacts to the city for not going through with the four lane plan

4:33:57I'm sold through them through the mayor to council goller

4:34:02So the the simple answer is yes, it will it will cost more money

4:34:06So whenever you defer what we've kept in the project right now

4:34:09We've desculpted so that the project very specifically just includes those items that

4:34:18Accelerate housing for growth for the GID and so

4:34:22What's not included in there is the widening of the road with that comes a lot of complicated storm water management

4:34:32Things so we have not and we have not included those we've taken that right out of the budget at some point when you widen out that road

4:34:38Then you will have to do those storm water management

4:34:41Those storm water management works and yes when you when you leave it it's going to cost more money down the road

4:34:47How much I again? I don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell you how much it's going to cost

4:34:51But

4:34:53It's probably never going to be cheaper than if you do it right now

4:34:55But it is a lot of money and so we were if it wasn't we were laser focused on making sure that we were

4:35:02Making sure all of our projects did support housing and growth stayed a good repair legislative things

4:35:07So if it didn't support any of those then then we deferred it in the budget until we could afford it

4:35:14Thank you for that. Thank you worship

4:35:19Great. Thank you. I just need I have to have a quick follow-up. I'm sorry. I just maybe didn't hear very quick

4:35:27Correctly, but I don't want to jump back to this point about your quote because I was on my list to ask so if you don't mind

4:35:32Did you say on the budget board that you would present to us?

4:35:35What the differential is between the do it now versus what you've what you've recommended as a deferral?

4:35:42We can through to you mr. Mayor we can

4:35:46Yes, we can come up. It'll be a theoretical number because we'll be guessing on inflation

4:35:51And then not to hold it to anybody anything but some kind of differential is

4:35:56Yeah, we can tell you what we deferred right now and then what that might be in

4:36:02Five ten years

4:36:04Yes, we'll put something on the budget board for you so you can take a look at it

4:36:08Okay, I'm sorry. I just gotta do a follow-up here. Okay, the York Road project has been like a five six year project

4:36:14That's been identified whatever for for so many years, right?

4:36:19I just heard you say maybe five to ten years out

4:36:22But I mean everyone in the community

4:36:24I think knows that the this this section right now up to Victoria is getting done

4:36:30Next and then from Victoria to Watson Road is getting done next which is exactly the area that we're talking about right now

4:36:36Has that been deferred as well?

4:36:39Because that's been on a sequence of yeah, so if it's the part that's under design right now

4:36:45And if you if you'd like more details, I can get Terry game to come in he can give you very specifically what the the likes of

4:36:52Where the limits are right now? We've deferred 30 million dollars

4:36:56from the segments that

4:36:58Terry comes in he can help tell us where it is

4:37:02And then we'll have to at some point in the future go back and decide

4:37:06When we might be putting that in and how much that is going to cost based on some theoretical calculation associated with inflation and and

4:37:14And

4:37:16Another thing okay well, okay, we'll pause there. I've Terry if you are listening. I'd like you to come in

4:37:22Back we'll get back to this but Terry if you're listening. I'd love for you to come in

4:37:25Thank you because yeah, I've got some questions then on that as a follow-up counselor

4:37:31Colosson is next I just want to

4:37:34Again just say that our guests have arrived from the county

4:37:36So I just wanted to get to that but just I'll just do this three if that's okay for now Colosson

4:37:41I have a quick follow-up question from Gibson

4:37:45So just the two for now. Oh, sorry a roar as well. Sorry. Okay, so Colosson

4:37:50Follow-up with Gibson and then back to a roar starting to circle a bit here, but let's go with you counselor

4:37:57Okay, thank you through you merit to staff

4:37:59Two quick ones

4:38:01In the presentation you talked about a service reduction for downtown renewal from great to good

4:38:08So I'm wondering how much roughly does that represent in the budget and also what will that mean?

4:38:14Long term for downtown

4:38:18through the mayor to council class and so I'm glad Terry's here so you can help me bit with the numbers but I

4:38:24Believe it was about 50 million dollars that 15 million per year over the next four years. I think it was that we

4:38:31That we had deferred that was the difference between what was considered good and what was considered

4:38:37best so

4:38:39What we that's not a decision that has to be made today

4:38:42I will say as well

4:38:43We are going to be coming back to council to do a workshop to go through some of the options that might be considered for

4:38:50Streetscaping that's where the that's where you're seeing some of these costs all the underground costs associated with

4:38:57infrastructure repair and increased capacity to

4:39:00Incorporate growth that doesn't change

4:39:03It's some of the streetscaping what we call the icing on the cake that would

4:39:08Be up for review depending on how much fund it we wanted to spend on that

4:39:14Sorry and through the mayor if I can just help with the numbers a little bit

4:39:20So in the month in the multi-year from a four-year perspective

4:39:22We're talking about 15 million dollars in total over the course of the downtown infrastructure no program

4:39:28It's 50 million dollars in difference. Okay. Thank you and then

4:39:40Maybe this is hard to you know

4:39:43Qualify but what will that mean for the town like what does what are we taking away?

4:39:52Through through the mayor to council class and so again, we'll be coming back to you in in the spring to talk about some more details

4:39:59But essentially it will

4:40:00be some of those animated spaces that you see on the streetscape.

4:40:05So it would be maybe the sidewalks wouldn't be wider.

4:40:09There's a lot of trees.

4:40:10When you have trees in a downtown core,

4:40:12they have to be planted properly in proper cells so that they survive.

4:40:17Stormwater management, utility corridor management.

4:40:20So there's lots of things to consider when you're putting things on

4:40:23the streetscape in the pedestrian corridor because everything underneath has

4:40:28to be coordinated so that it doesn't conflict with what's on top.

4:40:33So I know it's a complicated answer, but

4:40:35it's essentially what you see on the street, whether it's super fancy or

4:40:40it's essentially what you have now.

4:40:41What we'd love to do is to make the downtown the heart of our city to make it

4:40:46a destination place.

4:40:48And usually for that what you see in downtown's wider sidewalks,

4:40:52you have places for street furniture.

4:40:56You have street trees.

4:40:58All those things will cost money.

4:40:59So we would be coming to you with some options about what you'd like to spend

4:41:03your money on when we come back in the spring.

4:41:09Okay, thank you.

4:41:10And so some of those considerations that we'll be making in the spring then.

4:41:16Will we have another opportunity down the road to revisit that?

4:41:19If we push this, we say, we don't want to invest.

4:41:21We want it to be good.

4:41:24Not great.

4:41:25Will that be another 25, 30 years before something like this is even revisited?

4:41:32Well, usually when you do big infrastructure through the mayor to

4:41:35council class and usually when you do these big infrastructure projects in

4:41:39your downtowns, they're big, complicated, disruptive projects.

4:41:44We'd like to be one and done.

4:41:46Get in there, do it all, and then you're good for the next 50, 100 years.

4:41:51If you did something that you weren't quite happy with,

4:41:54that you wanted to go back and do it later, again, you're disrupting the business

4:41:57and the traffic and all the residents in the downtown one more time.

4:42:01And the amount of money that you would spend would probably not be palatable.

4:42:09Okay, thank you.

4:42:10I appreciate those answers.

4:42:12My next question is about the $45,000 that was removed from the patio program.

4:42:19I was wondering if you could speak to what that is and what will that mean?

4:42:23Because we just approved the downtown patio program and

4:42:26now we're already taking away almost $50,000.

4:42:30Yeah, so the patio is through the mayor to council class and so

4:42:33when we talked about the patio program, you'll recall that we wanted to make it

4:42:38revenue neutral as much as possible.

4:42:41There was, we wanted to not utilize the mat tax and we were looking to increase,

4:42:47I think it's the rental area of where the patios go to a certain amount so

4:42:51it covers all the costs.

4:42:53Those costs included overtime from public works to be able to put the patios

4:42:57together.

4:42:58It also includes part-time wages for a staff member to help coordinate the patio

4:43:07program because it is very complicated but only at certain times of the year.

4:43:11But when it is either being put together or when it's being demobilized,

4:43:16there's a lot of work associated with that.

4:43:18So we do need some help in terms of making sure that we're coordinating that

4:43:23for all of our businesses and also all the residents that live in the

4:43:25downtown as well.

4:43:26So there was $45,000 that we included in the budget to cover replacement for

4:43:34the water, any replacements because they don't last forever, those barriers,

4:43:37you have to replace them every now and then.

4:43:39So we were including money for that and also for the part-time wages for

4:43:44a staff member to help coordinate the program.

4:43:47And so that money was removed from the budget.

4:43:51Again, we were trying to be as laser-focused as we could in terms of

4:43:54concentrating on growth and housing in the downtown.

4:43:58And it's not a lot of money but it is, we were looking through everything just

4:44:03to be consistent throughout our budgets.

4:44:06Okay, so thank you for that.

4:44:08Does that mean then we won't be able to replace those barriers?

4:44:13I'm just trying to think of like in the next five years,

4:44:17what we lose opportunities for patios, what are the kind of direct

4:44:23consequences for not funding it?

4:44:25For not putting that $45,000 in council class and through the mayor.

4:44:30It's going to be very difficult for us to coordinate,

4:44:34to properly coordinate that patio program.

4:44:36We are getting more efficient as time goes on because we're just getting better at

4:44:40it, but the program is also getting bigger as our businesses realize that the

4:44:44benefits of having a patio outside on the street.

4:44:48So it's going to be very difficult to use existing staff who are already at

4:44:53capacity to coordinate that program.

4:44:57So we try to put everything up as quick as we can.

4:45:02We understand there's businesses, time is money.

4:45:04They want to get out there as quick as they can.

4:45:06They want things set up quickly and efficiently as they can.

4:45:09And to do that we'd need somebody to help coordinate.

4:45:11And that's why we asked for that in the first place when we were,

4:45:13when we originally brought it to council in the summer.

4:45:18Okay, thank you.

4:45:23Okay, I remember just a reminder, I tried to keep us focused on one section of

4:45:27the budget, which is the pill.

4:45:28We kind of really veered off there.

4:45:31So Gibson is last and then I'd like to go to the county.

4:45:34Okay.

4:45:37Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor.

4:45:39My questions were, I mean, Councillor Goller kind of simulated my interest on

4:45:44your growth that I wasn't aware of.

4:45:46So maybe I'll just pause my questions for later.

4:45:51And I'm very sorry, I forgot I had at work as well.

4:45:54Thank you, Mayor Guthrie.

4:45:55Through you to staff.

4:45:56This is about the pill.

4:45:59So in the last budget briefing session that we had, there was in the chart that

4:46:04we are going to need an additional or a tertiary water treatment facility.

4:46:09Right.

4:46:09So if we want to meet our housing pledge, we need to accelerate.

4:46:13I think the number was in the neighborhood of 70 million.

4:46:15And if people are watching and we seem not sure about all our stuff,

4:46:19we all got this on Friday as well.

4:46:21So, so I'm thinking of a municipality that does not have the water treatment

4:46:27required for the growth and they turned down the housing pledge.

4:46:31We're getting emails from people all over the place saying we can't afford this.

4:46:35Like we cannot afford the housing pledge.

4:46:38We can't afford bill 23.

4:46:40So I'm wondering, I didn't see anything specifically to that tertiary water

4:46:44treatment facility in the budget package.

4:46:48Is that downward line that we're seeing on infrastructure renewal,

4:46:52utility rate supported services, is that where the tertiary treatment facility

4:46:57is?

4:46:57What's the impact of that?

4:46:59And what happens if we don't do that?

4:47:02Right.

4:47:02So that's a facility we haven't talked about at council as a standalone

4:47:06project, as we have for transit, as we have for other projects.

4:47:08So what's the impact of that?

4:47:11What happens if we don't do it?

4:47:13I'm just really trying to understand what all the budget impacts are.

4:47:16That's a big one.

4:47:18Through the mayor to council of work.

4:47:20So there's a couple of big projects in there that the biosolids facility and

4:47:23there's the tertiary treatment process.

4:47:27So you'll recall that when we came with our wastewater master plan,

4:47:34that was the first time that that had been updated since 2009.

4:47:38And so when we did the master plan, we were looking at what the projected

4:47:45growth numbers were at the time.

4:47:48I've just got to check with staff.

4:47:50I think it was before the bill 23 came in.

4:47:53So it was before the housing pledge.

4:47:56We were looking at those projected numbers because planning was also doing

4:47:59the the MCR at the same time.

4:48:02We were also looking at what the new requirements were going to be from the

4:48:08MOE because there's new stringent requirements that are required.

4:48:11So in order to meet the population growth that we were even going to anticipate

4:48:17before bill 23, we were going to have to build in these facilities.

4:48:23They are a lot of money.

4:48:26They have not shown up before because we did not have an updated master plan

4:48:30that had details on what was required on our projections.

4:48:38And even if I had put it in last year, I would not have been able to defend it

4:48:42because I didn't have any information in order to be able to put in an estimate.

4:48:48So these are long term projects.

4:48:51I will just point out that there's a big amount of money at the beginning

4:48:56because we have to start the design.

4:48:57We have to, they're complicated.

4:49:00We have to get the design.

4:49:01Then we have to check in with all of our stakeholders.

4:49:04And then actually then you have to start building it.

4:49:06And sometimes they take two or three years to come online.

4:49:09So that's why you're starting to see them in now because we're trying to anticipate

4:49:13when we're going to need those facilities in order to facilitate our growth.

4:49:17But I will check on just making sure that whether is it earlier because of Bill 23.

4:49:22I don't think it is.

4:49:23I'm just thinking of the timing.

4:49:24I think we would have needed that anyway regardless.

4:49:28Great. Thanks.

4:49:30Okay. Our friends from the county are here.

4:49:33So I'd like to make sure you respect their time because they are here.

4:49:37And so perhaps you guys can come up if you want to the microphone here.

4:49:43I'm sure we have some questions there and we'll allow you to get ready.

4:49:46And we'll start with the councillor, caller, once they come down.

4:49:53Okay. Thank you.

4:49:57Through your worship.

4:49:58My first question is to city of Guelph staff about how the request was presented before I

4:50:04asked the delegates.

4:50:05I just have a question for you.

4:50:06Sure. Ask away as they're getting ready.

4:50:07Perfect.

4:50:08And through your worship to our team on there was a request from the county for

4:50:15five points on million dollars and then that that we will repeat responsible for 90%.

4:50:21So four points on million dollars and then 1.2 million dollars in the following year.

4:50:27But when I looked at slide 27, it showed different numbers.

4:50:33So I just wanted to reconcile the request from the county that they're saying that

4:50:38they're going to need four point some million dollars in 2024 and then a million dollars

4:50:43in the following year and the following year.

4:50:45But then the request is presented.

4:50:47It's, you know, one point something year over year.

4:50:54Yes.

4:50:54So thank you for the question and through the mayor.

4:51:00So we have the budget impact for the county in two spots.

4:51:05And so the 4.6 that you just referenced and then the next increment in 2025 is part of

4:51:12the that HHH section, the housing, the the provincial impact section and then the rest

4:51:19of the county's impact is in the local board so that you will see it into if you drill

4:51:25into the dashboard and in the actual budget materials and you look at the line for the

4:51:32social services as a whole.

4:51:34It's all in one spot when you drill into like the actual, you know, business unit level.

4:51:40So you can see it there all in.

4:51:43So we can we can add a little bit more context and just a summary for you to help on the board,

4:51:48but just to kind of set the stage for for the questions today in the in the presentation.

4:51:54It was in two spots.

4:51:57That is very helpful.

4:51:58Thank you for for explaining that.

4:52:00And you have the floor so you can keep going with our guests here now.

4:52:04Yes, thank you.

4:52:05Thank you for your worship.

4:52:06Thank you for for Mr. Tussaud and for for your presence here.

4:52:12I we have received the budget and and we are we'll have a bit of a shock of, you know,

4:52:17the overall city budget is is is significant.

4:52:22So so we we are now looking to see to really understand the impact.

4:52:28So could could I ask for you to please outline for us the the request from the county to

4:52:34the city for that 4.6 million dollar increase in 2024?

4:52:40What difference, you know, what what does that actually change in our community

4:52:44in terms of the increased levels of service that we would be getting for for that amount?

4:52:50Thank you.

4:52:51So you, America, three to you, Councillor Goller,

4:52:55most of the information and the reason for the request and the data that supports

4:53:00the request is in the preliminary package that I presented on September the 12th.

4:53:06I, you know, I guess in summary, we know that we are facing an increased number of

4:53:14people that are experiencing homelessness in Guelph.

4:53:18The numbers rose significantly in 2023 and we are tracking that those numbers

4:53:24are continuing to increase.

4:53:26Our shelters are filling up and during October there was probably about 15 to 20

4:53:33evenings where we needed to turn people away.

4:53:37And we're also seeing a significant increase in the number of families that are

4:53:41experiencing homelessness.

4:53:44We typically had about two or three families from 2020.

4:53:50In October, we're up to 10 families.

4:53:53By the end of October, we're up to 17 families.

4:53:59The acuity of individuals that need, you know, to be housed in our system has

4:54:07increased and we are needing to ensure that we open up transitional housing as well as

4:54:15support the funding that is needed.

4:54:19Aside from health funding, we did not, we did not request any funding that we felt

4:54:25needs to come from the Ministry of Health.

4:54:27We're staying in our lane to ensure that those supportive housing units are open.

4:54:33So we are trying to address the immediate need, the immediate increase, which has

4:54:41been impacted significantly by the rising costs of delivering those services.

4:54:48So you will see potentially a decrease in the number of individuals that are in

4:54:56encampments.

4:54:57You're going to see a reduction in the number of people that are being turned away at

4:55:02emergency shelters.

4:55:04You're going to see people that will actually be have a plan that will

4:55:11work for them to go into transitional housing to support them in obtaining and

4:55:16being stabilized in a permanent housing solution for them.

4:55:21And you will see people that need supportive permanent housing, receive the

4:55:26services that they get.

4:55:28You will see that the cycle of individuals being housed and then being evicted only

4:55:34to return back into experiencing homelessness that will also be reduced.

4:55:39So I hope that provides you a picture of why that funding is so significant, why it

4:55:48is important and to meet the here and the now needs projects that are in the works

4:55:58right now to which capital dollars are not being affected, is not affecting

4:56:04municipal. All of the projects that we're talking about have received capital

4:56:09dollars either from the province or the feds.

4:56:12We're now looking at operating.

4:56:15And that is an example or a situation that we're in that a lot of the funding

4:56:21that's provided to us is capital where we're seeing a significant insignificant

4:56:29funding is the operating.

4:56:31And we're also seeing funding reductions that we're having to cope to maintain the

4:56:35certain level that we have right now.

4:56:39And if we continue down this trajectory, we will continue to see an increase in

4:56:43people experiencing homelessness.

4:56:45You'll see an increase in encampments.

4:56:46You'll see people not having a warm place to stay at night.

4:56:52That's going to continue to get worse if we do not put some municipal dollars in at

4:56:57this time.

4:56:59And it is our role as a CMSM to ensure that we have a plan that responds to local

4:57:07needs and do what we feel is the right thing to do for those individuals that

4:57:14ultimately impacts the community at large.

4:57:17It will avoid people from going to the hospital.

4:57:20It will, you know, perhaps reduce crime.

4:57:28And as people are needing a place to stay and a place to be at night, I think that

4:57:34you'll there's there's the ripple effect of many benefits to providing these

4:57:39individuals with what they deserve.

4:57:42Thank you for that detailed answer.

4:57:44I really appreciate it.

4:57:45And through your worship, following up on that, I will I will circle back to that

4:57:51presentation that was made on October, sorry, September 12th with those numbers.

4:57:57But I really appreciate having the updated numbers for October.

4:58:03What would the timeline be for those changes to actually be implemented?

4:58:07So we would say approve this request for additional dollars at the end of this month.

4:58:13What is the timeline for those new overnight shelters to be opened and for

4:58:18that new housing stability funding to be to be used by the county?

4:58:23So three, you may go to Councillor Goller.

4:58:26You're going to see the impact starting in 2024.

4:58:31We've already looked at opening up two emergency shelters.

4:58:36One is two are actually opening up next month.

4:58:39One on Waterloo Avenue and the other one on Highway six.

4:58:43We've sustained our agreement to continue to use the former Holiday Inn on Silver Creek

4:58:50on a temporary basis because we want to reduce the use of that building and put people into

4:58:58what we see as long term emergency shelters that are close to services that individuals need.

4:59:07So that's an immediate that that's actually happening in the works right now.

4:59:11There was a report that went to Social Services Committee in October and the approval to provide

4:59:18stepping stone with two operating dollars for those two projects was approved.

4:59:25The transitional housing unit on Delhi Street is projected to open in the fall of 2024.

4:59:32And that's why you're seeing some of the costs that are being transferred over to 2025.

4:59:38So we're budgeting for part of 2024.

4:59:40But as of 2025, we're getting into like the full year.

4:59:44So that's why there's some of those increases.

4:59:46What you see in 2025 is not new.

4:59:50What it is is a full year of what we're starting in 2024.

4:59:55We know Grace Gardens has already opened up and there's 32 beds there.

5:00:00So, you know, they're operating that shelter.

5:00:04And then we're looking at another project that will increase

5:00:09emergency shelter beds by 27 and then add on 14 transitional housing units.

5:00:15Again, that is slated for the fall of 2024.

5:00:18Okay. Okay. Thank you.

5:00:20Thank you very much for that explanation.

5:00:22Now, as we go through with the rest of our deliberations, we may decide that we only want to fund

5:00:29a certain amount.

5:00:30So if I could ask if the city were to only fund 80% of your request per se,

5:00:38would that mean that there would be less overnight emergency shelter beds?

5:00:43Or would that mean that there is less housing stability supports?

5:00:47So that effectively more people end up facing homelessness.

5:00:51What would be the impact of a city of wealth reduction in the request?

5:00:56Athuya Mayor Guthrie, to Councillor Goller, I first want to make sure I say we continue to look for

5:01:03opportunities to, you know, to you to have more provincial dollars in order to decrease,

5:01:10to offset some of the costs that we're asking for or that we have budgeted for.

5:01:18I'd be heart pressed to say we don't need it all.

5:01:21I think that I know that we have asked for the absolute bare minimum that we feel that we need

5:01:29to have in order to ride out the next two years while we continue to advocate to the province

5:01:36to increase their funding for housing and homelessness, which is desperately needed.

5:01:42And we work alongside AMO and AMSA for those requests,

5:01:46as well as to the Ministry of Health to say that we need your support in stabilizing

5:01:52these individuals and their housing solutions for some of them, not all of them, but,

5:01:56you know, we do need that. So as we move and get more provincial dollars,

5:02:02again, the needs assessment will need to get, you know, continue on.

5:02:07And then we'll see where we land in 2025.

5:02:10Should it be your request that we go back and change our plan for what we are mandated to

5:02:17provide to you as a subject matter experts on homelessness and housing, we will likely look

5:02:24to you to tell us where you'd like these reductions because we feel that they're all needed.

5:02:33Thank you. Thank you very much. And I do hear that they're needed. And it is really the number

5:02:37one concern that I hear from my constituents and our downtown businesses that they're severely

5:02:43been impacted by homelessness and poverty in our city. Thank you. Thank you, Your Worship.

5:02:49Thank you. Okay. Continuing on with questions, Councillor Prusatil, please.

5:02:55Thank you. I thought there would be a lineup. Thank you for coming. Welcome, Louisa.

5:02:59I'm going to ask a question that I've asked the local boards. This is vote shared services. And

5:03:03you alluded to it in your discussion about a reduction to operating. And the city has put

5:03:11together the pill, you know, the downloading that we've, you know, we're now the handmaidens for

5:03:16things that we weren't expecting to be. Does the county do that? I mean, I understand and

5:03:23with respect to my councillors and so on, we really want to care for our residents.

5:03:27But at the end of the day, we're not equipped in terms of tax and revenue to be running

5:03:33operations. My question is, is it possible for you to quantify the gap? What is missing from the

5:03:42province? You know, over time, because I think eventually we, all of us, whether it's AMO or

5:03:47through the city, we want a better deal. And we want to quantify not just the city, but all of our

5:03:53shared services and all of our local boards where, you know, revenue is slowly incrementally disappearing.

5:03:59We need to roll that up and say, and the total is here, whether it's provincial or federal.

5:04:06I think you may have got three to council. Abusa tell yes, we can definitely do that.

5:04:12Our staff work closely with city staff to identify what the gaps in housing is.

5:04:192023 is like we said, it's really hard to only knowing that it's going, the need is going up.

5:04:26I think once we get our annual data for 2023 and start to look at projections over the next five

5:04:34years, I also, it is in the plan for that to be part of the health and housing symposium.

5:04:42So that all that information is collected together. And then we can come up with a solid

5:04:47number to share with the province. And that will be followed by strategic and unified advocacy

5:04:54to the province to say this is what the Wellington service delivery area needs.

5:05:01So it is definitely possible. I think that doing it now in the, you know, in the in the fourth quarter

5:05:082023, it would be good to have the data of the fourth quarter as well. So then we have a full

5:05:14year projection of and story of what our community is is experiencing. Thank you.

5:05:26Okay. I don't see any other questions. So I have, I have one I'm going to be very direct

5:05:31because I think it needs to be out in the, you know, I'm going to ask you a yes or no question.

5:05:35The four to five million dollars, that is non-discretionary. You, you're asking for that to

5:05:41be in because it's coming from the county to, to city council. Am I correct? You're correct.

5:05:46Thank you. Is there any other questions? No, thank you very much for coming. And to the county

5:05:56staff that have been here for a while. Thank you for being here and having lunch with us.

5:06:01Thank you very much. Our outside boards are sort of taking care of that we had questions for.

5:06:10We veered off a little bit outside of the pill issue. You know, I just want to make a statement

5:06:16before we go a little bit further. You know, I, this is the difficulty that we're facing here

5:06:21that's new for this year around, especially the pill, right? So you just heard, you just heard

5:06:27that portion of the pill non-discretionary. That's the cost. That's it. The hospital portion of the

5:06:36pill, non-discretionary, we made the commitment. It's there. It's the cost. And then with the

5:06:41questioning, good questioning from Councillor Gibson to, to Tara or CFO, that portion of the

5:06:49provincial impacts due to the legislation, that's the cost. And in fact, it's kind of underfunded

5:06:56as a risk. That is the cost. And so if we are looking at like affordability type of, you know,

5:07:05focus, as I said at the beginning of my opening remarks, in a way, that's the pill is not an area

5:07:12where we can, where we can skim around the edges. Those three things, they're in. That's it. So we're

5:07:20starting our budget at 3.3% with no way of amending that at all, purely because of the provincial

5:07:28impacts. That's it. So is there stuff that we can do in other areas? Maybe, but I just, that is a very,

5:07:37I hope I'm really explaining this, maybe not to my friends in the room here, but to the people

5:07:41that are listening, we are starting this budget at 3.3% because of provincial impacts. And that's

5:07:48why it's so important to make it transparent to the community. All right, Mayor's done on that

5:07:54little soapbox. What other questions do we have for staff in regards to the budget, remembering

5:08:01that we have the budget board? Just another gentle reminder. I'll go to you, Busatil first, and then

5:08:05to Gibson. Okay. Thank you. It's just a question of clarification. Tara, during your presentation

5:08:11around the Brownfield Renewal Reserve Fund, just clarification, is that fund

5:08:17sweatered, you know, it's specific or can it be used elsewhere? I thought I heard you said it could

5:08:22be used elsewhere. It's a council, I don't want to say discretionary reserve fund, but it is,

5:08:32it's a council reserve fund. So you have the authority to use that money as you choose. However,

5:08:38the reserve fund is specifically for the cost that we fund out of there related to the city-owned

5:08:45sites that have contamination. And so we fund monitoring and then the cleanup from that.

5:08:52Thank you. And just a supplemental. So I'm trying to remember the slide. I think there was

5:08:57it was a healthy reserve fund. So if if council draws down on that reserve fund,

5:09:03it would pay it back into there. Is that so if so through the mayor, if you when you say draw

5:09:11down the reserve fund, if you lower the transfer to that reserve fund, you at some point that

5:09:20transfer would have to then increase again. And so there would be two kind of decision points on

5:09:25the lowering and then the increase. Thank you. Thank you, councillor. Gibson, please.

5:09:34Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. So just revisiting York Road, if you don't mind.

5:09:38Councillor Goller and I think Ms. Clark Bush mentioned it during her presentation,

5:09:42just the re-scoping of that project. I have to say it's been a long time coming for us out in

5:09:49the East End looking for that project to get redone. Can I get an update on the timeline then? I

5:09:53was always under the impression that we would be constructing the intersection of York and Victoria

5:10:00next summer and that we would be largely on the way to reconstruct and rebuild in that road in

5:10:052026. But it looks like now the project is budgeting up to 2028. If I could just get a quick update.

5:10:13Sure. So through the mayor to council Gibson, so when we were looking at spreading out the costs

5:10:20for York Road, we did, as I mentioned, we descoped it from four lanes to two and that included savings

5:10:29on doing some of the stormwater management work associated with that. And that was going to be

5:10:33very expensive. What we're planning on doing right now, the way it is prepared in the budget,

5:10:39is that we would do this in three sub phases. So we would be the segment that we're talking about,

5:10:45again, is Victoria Road to Watson. And we would do that in three phases in 2426 and 28 to spread

5:10:54out the costs of the work. So what we're trying to do is make sure that there is the new Clive

5:11:01treatment plant that is supposed to be completed in 2028 through our environmental services team,

5:11:06making sure that the that the water main, all the services are in place to be able to

5:11:12supply the water and the pressure to that water plant by that time.

5:11:16Okay, I'll just keep taking off. You don't mind, Mr. Mayor. Is was there like an engineering or

5:11:24I almost want to say like a traffic justification for reducing it from four to two. I mean,

5:11:31we've talked so many years about wanting to pull cars off of Grange Road down onto York. It's a major

5:11:37highway and we're not going to expand it to support. I mean, there's 10,000 homes up there

5:11:43and we're getting hundreds and hundreds more in the next two, three years. I mean, there's 500

5:11:48units going on at Starwood. There's a picture right here in the presentation. Starwood and

5:11:53Watson Parkway. There's probably 300, 400 units going in right now, not to mention what might come

5:11:59in the next year at Loblas. Is there a was there an engineering decision that would justify not

5:12:04going to four lanes? Quite honestly, to through the mayor to Councillor Gibson, it was more based on

5:12:12affordability when we were deciding to de-scope York Road as we were looking through some of our

5:12:18other projects as well. It was also in alignment with our transportation master plan as well. We are

5:12:24planning to do intersection improvements and it aligns with multi-use pathways because it aligns

5:12:32with trying to make sure that we are encouraging active transportation. Sure. Okay. I understand that.

5:12:40If I can go just a little bit more though. Whenever we talk about capital budgeting,

5:12:45we always talk about how things are funded. I'm assuming the city renewal infrastructure levy

5:12:53would be used in part, but there would also be development chargers that have been collected

5:12:57for many, many years associated with the growth and need for growth of that road that would have been

5:13:04paid into by the local residents, the look like even the homes that are being built now.

5:13:09Is this the place? I know it sounds weird because I'm an East End Councillor, but is this the place

5:13:16to save? Is this the project to save? Well, maybe I'll start and then maybe I can ask for some help

5:13:26in terms of the funding of the project. As we've mentioned before, Councillor Gibson, this was a

5:13:34difficult budget process and we were looking for ways to be able to stretch out our spending

5:13:43and places where we could reduce cost, where it wasn't going to be supporting housing.

5:13:51That was our philosophy in going into this. It pains us to do this because we had done a lot of

5:13:57pre-work on this and understanding that eventually those roads are going to have to be

5:14:02widened. I think Councillor Gullo mentioned about, alluded to the fact that, you know,

5:14:06whenever we do this in the future, it's going to cost more money to do that.

5:14:11I'm not quite sure of the funding and I'm wondering if Ms Baker can help out with the

5:14:18question. So I just need a minute to look up some of the funding impacts. I will say

5:14:28those projects have a lot of different sources of funding. I don't know if Mr.

5:14:33Gaiman, you want to jump in? Through the mayor and to Councillor Gibson,

5:14:37I can certainly say in generalities it's a mix of rates, tax and DCs to your point and certainly

5:14:44the growth ratio changes as you go from four lanes down to two lanes and so our finance team has put

5:14:49the appropriate funding mix into the budget as it is proposed and I agree with Ms Holmes in that

5:14:55it's a very difficult decision. It really is all about levels of service when you think about this

5:15:00expansion because the roads find itself in a way can hold the traffic that is required through

5:15:062051 and those projections, right? But it is a level of service conversation when you think about

5:15:10traffic congestion. Key though is to continue to move the project forward as it relates to

5:15:15getting the feeder main out to the Clyde Treatment Plan as you heard because that is a more of a

5:15:19critical path piece. Yeah, I think I'm familiar that, you know, I think in general the area of

5:15:27that area of the city is under service from a water perspective and getting those pipes and

5:15:31things out and getting the sewers out to the new hub of development that's happening. I just,

5:15:38I have to revisit a little bit of the history. 2007 City Council did an EA on this road,

5:15:46shelfed, had to be redone in 2017. I know that I know for a fact it was almost a half a million

5:15:53dollars of lost money because the EA sat on the shelf and now we're rescoping it. We've done a

5:15:59lot of public engagement on this. Is there, are we going to have to go back out to the public and

5:16:04let them know? I know it's a level of service thing but I don't want to tell these down about

5:16:11levels of service anymore. That's a problem, right? That's hard. Anyway, I'm not at a loss for words,

5:16:18I'm just a little disappointed. That's all. I'll speak that very clearly. That's a heartbreaking

5:16:24one to hear that that's a sacrifice of this budget. Another question I have and it's directly

5:16:30related to the infrastructure renewal reserve. So thank you very much for acknowledging in the,

5:16:34in the budget. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm saying it's a conversation that we've had many times

5:16:39over the years. Pace and affordability, it's right there in the budget. You've mentioned it that we,

5:16:44we cannot just simply catch up on the infrastructure renewal levely at the rate that we were going.

5:16:49It needed to be slowed down a little bit. So I appreciate that acknowledgement. Some, some debates

5:16:55take longer than others to sort of bubble up and come to, come to conclusion, but I appreciate that.

5:17:02My last question is just how we're going to finance some of these capital projects and it's on the

5:17:06next page of the budget. I don't know how to, I don't have a budget name, but it's around annual

5:17:11transfers. I'm not picking on a project here. Okay, council, please. I'm not picking on a project.

5:17:17The library and the police station capital transfers. It seems like it says here, I'll just

5:17:24read it because I have to read it first and then I'll get into my question. The transfer to the

5:17:27library capital reserve fund includes debt repayment costs for the Baker district library,

5:17:32which is expected to be issued in 2627. These costs are currently scheduled to be funded from

5:17:38the infrastructure renewal reserve fund while the funding is ongoing, going into the library

5:17:43capital reserve. This funds, these funds will be transferred, be transferred to the infrastructure

5:17:50renewal reserve as part of future budget confirmation processes. Are we, are we using the levy money,

5:18:00the infrastructure renewal levy to fund capital building more than what we said we would, I know

5:18:07we had this big debate of what the 1% is going to be used for. Is it all infrastructure renewal,

5:18:11but now it sounds like it's going to be used to finance and lend to the capital debt of some

5:18:18of these other big projects. Are we sacrificing infrastructure renewal while we do those transfers?

5:18:26Because I remember the infrastructure renewal debt went straight off the chart in your graph.

5:18:32Where's that money? Is that going to the library and the police debt to service those things?

5:18:37And then it's just going to be repaid at later times.

5:18:40So through the mayor, so thanks for asking that question. So,

5:18:45so no, first of all, so let me explain, but no, in the short short answer is no, that's not the case.

5:18:54Two years ago, we separated the police in the library infrastructure renewal amounts out of

5:19:01the city transfer because we were trying to ensure that the portions of their capital funding were

5:19:08within their control in terms of when they build their own, when they build their budgets, they

5:19:14also see the impact to the capital line. And previous to that, it was all captured in the

5:19:20cities. And so, so there was a transparency moment there. What that that, and so what that

5:19:26verbiage is saying is that we have a mismatch right now. And so it's really just a realignment.

5:19:34And so when, when we budgeted for the debt, it was, it's right now being captured in the

5:19:43transfer to the library. So that cost is showing there. But the actual debt costs where we budgeted,

5:19:50it's actually being, it's pulling out of the cities. So when we did the picture, all three of those

5:19:55reserve funds are part of that visual. So we grouped it all together. So there's

5:20:00No, it's just a realignment that needs to be done

5:20:04on a net zero basis to bring those back in line.

5:20:08But to answer more specifically your question,

5:20:12there's been no change in the infrastructure renewal amount

5:20:14on any of those projects.

5:20:16The project itself was a proportionate share

5:20:19of infrastructure renewal and I'll specifically say

5:20:21for the one that you said on the library,

5:20:24that was a proportion because there's an aged facility.

5:20:27So part of the new build is infrastructure renewal

5:20:31and that has not changed.

5:20:32So there's no, there's just, there's no taking of money

5:20:37to out of IR for that purpose.

5:20:41It was always planned.

5:20:42We just need to realign where the cost is actually

5:20:47being funded from in the back end.

5:20:53Okay, thank you.

5:20:54Just my last question.

5:20:56And again, I'm just really consuming the budget.

5:20:58Now I'll commit to doing more on the budget board

5:21:00in the future.

5:21:01Thank you.

5:21:02The, it's going to be total stormwater ponds

5:21:06and structures.

5:21:08I don't know if we need to call someone in.

5:21:10I guess it's just, my question is it looks to me

5:21:14like there's a big tranche of work coming in 26, 28, 29,

5:21:2030 and 31, but there seems to be like what is associated

5:21:25with that work 28, 29, 30, like pushed out four years

5:21:29and it seems, I don't know what the historical spend on

5:21:33a stormwater has been over the last five, 10 years,

5:21:35but it seems in comparison, it seems low

5:21:37for the next four years and it increases again in 28, 29.

5:21:41Can, is there, is there information there

5:21:44that we can be shared?

5:21:46Head through the mayor to councillor Gibson.

5:21:47Certainly as we went through the budget revisions,

5:21:50there wasn't a substantial pressure on the stormwater

5:21:53reserve as you kind of saw earlier with respect

5:21:55to Ms. Baker's presentation.

5:21:56And so for the, for the period of this multi-year budget

5:22:00staff have done the work more specifically to the 27 year

5:22:04and then from 28 and beyond, we need a little bit more time

5:22:07through the budget confirmation to kind of smooth that out

5:22:09a little bit more, but in there now are things like the end

5:22:12of pipe facilities, for example, that are identified

5:22:14in the stormwater management master plan.

5:22:16If you recall the master plan had about 300 million

5:22:19in additional project work to be completed

5:22:21for the city system overall.

5:22:22So it is about blending that out a little bit further

5:22:25and that is work that we'll be doing

5:22:27as we go through the next few years.

5:22:31Okay, thank you, councillor, you're good.

5:22:33Okay, last on my list here is councillor Caton.

5:22:38Thank you very much.

5:22:39Super you, Mr. Mayor.

5:22:41So my, my questions are also about York road.

5:22:45No surprise, board one.

5:22:49I like councillor Gibson.

5:22:50I'm less concerned about the reduction to two lanes.

5:22:56I had a question.

5:22:57Does that mean that the Clive Creek would not need

5:23:01to be moved and there wouldn't be a disruption there then?

5:23:07Through the mayor and councillor Caton.

5:23:09Yeah, one of the bigger impacts of remaining at two lanes

5:23:13instead of expanding to four lanes is that we do not need

5:23:15to relocate the creek.

5:23:16That one is that's one of the bigger expense drivers

5:23:19and of course from an environmental perspective

5:23:20as well, there's benefits to not doing that.

5:23:24That makes me happy actually.

5:23:26So with, with a hard budget,

5:23:28it's nice to have a little bit of a win there.

5:23:31I am a bit concerned through the mayor

5:23:35about the folks on city of you drive.

5:23:38Now, with the timeline expansion,

5:23:41I know that there's a group of people there

5:23:43have been waiting a long time for pedestrian crossing

5:23:47across the street to go to the bus stop

5:23:49that was tied in with the reconstruction of the road.

5:23:54Now that it doesn't need to be designed for four lane,

5:23:57is there a possibility that that pedestrian crosswalk

5:24:00could go in earlier?

5:24:01Or does that mean that this is impacting their timeline

5:24:05on that safety feature?

5:24:10Through the mayor to councillor Caton.

5:24:12So with respect to that, I think that is part of the

5:24:14redesign work that we're looking at right now

5:24:16in terms of the timing and when it would be most appropriate

5:24:19because we still do have to come through with the construction

5:24:21and so it will be disruptive in that area.

5:24:24The work itself is broken down into three sub phases

5:24:28and that's why you see the budget split into 24, 26 and 28.

5:24:31And so depending on exactly how the construction sequencing

5:24:35is set up, the answer to your question is sort of

5:24:38buried within the answers to the sequence.

5:24:40And so I think that that's probably the best way

5:24:42to answer that for now and our team will continue to look

5:24:44at when the right time to build those pedestrian features is.

5:24:49Okay.

5:24:50I'll, I'm sure I'll be having conversations

5:24:52with you on the side about that in the future.

5:24:54Thank you.

5:24:57Okay, councillor O'Rourke.

5:25:00Thank you, mayor Guthrie.

5:25:02So through you to staff, I'm just going to go

5:25:03in the order of the presentation.

5:25:05Okay.

5:25:06My first question is about paramedics.

5:25:10Does this budget call for eight new paramedics?

5:25:13I think.

5:25:15And so I'm just wondering, is that in line with the master

5:25:17plan that was done a number of years ago?

5:25:20Are those, because we've been adding shifts

5:25:24pretty much every, every budget we've had,

5:25:26how much of that is being driven by offload delays?

5:25:30So, so a question on the hiring and then a question

5:25:32around facilities.

5:25:33So the county said they don't want refreshed

5:25:37or new stations, right?

5:25:40And I think that was $11 million when we had our joint meeting.

5:25:44Does that get pushed out?

5:25:45So can you help me understand?

5:25:47And you know, I'm not picking favorites.

5:25:48I asked the police, I asked the library, like,

5:25:51are there compressions that can be made here

5:25:53while still meeting our duty of care?

5:25:57Sure.

5:25:58So through the mayor to council for work,

5:25:59and maybe if clerks can have chief doer sort of handy

5:26:03and waiting in the wings in case I need help.

5:26:05But in answer to your first question,

5:26:07this is following along on the paramedic services master

5:26:10plan.

5:26:11So that master plan sort of set out our recommendations

5:26:14for a number of years, certainly coming out of the pandemic

5:26:17and where we're seeing offload delays has only made

5:26:19those problems worse.

5:26:21But we are still following the pace at which that master plan

5:26:26set out our recommendations.

5:26:28And so that is continuing in terms of the addition

5:26:32of those paramedics that you're referring to that

5:26:34are in the budget.

5:26:35So in short, yes, it is meeting the recommendations

5:26:37of the master plan and offload delays

5:26:40and the challenges that we're seeing systemically

5:26:42across our health care system are only making that even more

5:26:45important that we keep pace.

5:26:47We haven't gone faster than the recommendations,

5:26:49but we certainly don't want to slow down

5:26:51because we did not meet our response times targets last year.

5:26:55So we thought that it was important when

5:26:58we were considering the budget that that was one of the areas

5:27:01where we didn't pull back and we did

5:27:03leave those expansion of those additional paramedics

5:27:06in the budget.

5:27:07In terms of the stations, just for clarification,

5:27:10and Ms. Holmes can jump in as needed,

5:27:13there is money in the budget for the replacement of the Elmira

5:27:16Road paramedic station, which is here in Guelph,

5:27:18and that is the city's responsibility

5:27:20to build and budget for because it's located

5:27:23within the city limits.

5:27:25It is also our responsibility to build paramedic stations

5:27:28elsewhere, including in the county.

5:27:30Paramedic services is run by the city.

5:27:33Previously, there was discussion with the county

5:27:37that there was benefit to both parties for the county

5:27:41to consider building stations for us.

5:27:44Independent from the funding that they

5:27:46have to provide for paramedic services,

5:27:48they in essence can become the developer and the landlord

5:27:51and build paramedic stations and lease them back to us

5:27:54because that allows us to access more funding

5:27:57through the province.

5:27:58And it's a win-win because then the county themselves

5:28:00are also generating that revenue off building the stations

5:28:03and leasing them to us.

5:28:04As we know from a previous county social services committee,

5:28:08there seemed to be some reluctance

5:28:10from some members of the social services committee.

5:28:12In fact, Chief Dewar, Antivilco, and I

5:28:14are going tomorrow to the social services committee

5:28:16to answer more of their questions about funding

5:28:20of paramedic stations and the capital

5:28:21build of the paramedic stations.

5:28:23But as Ms. Holmes said, I think in her speaking notes,

5:28:26if the county elects not to proceed with building paramedic

5:28:30stations in the county and leasing them to us,

5:28:32we will simply then need to proceed and do them ourselves

5:28:35and work with the developer and build them.

5:28:38So we're still very, very hopeful on our conversations

5:28:40with the county that they will continue to see the benefits.

5:28:43And we've had a number of conversations

5:28:45with the county staff in this regard.

5:28:48And as I say, we'll be speaking with their social services

5:28:50committee tomorrow to try to answer their questions.

5:28:52But the responsibility for the capital of building stations

5:28:56does sit with the city.

5:28:57And so we will proceed, hopefully,

5:28:59on the path of working with the county and, if not,

5:29:01then independently if we need to.

5:29:05OK.

5:29:06Oh, sorry, Gwyn.

5:29:07Yeah, through you, Marigot, three.

5:29:08I have a couple.

5:29:09And I'm trying to pick and choose.

5:29:11The rest can go to the budget board.

5:29:13Can you help me understand?

5:29:15So the presentation gives a lot of information, right?

5:29:18So sometimes I'm just thinking about whether I understood

5:29:20that and you're on to the next slide.

5:29:24Page 50 of the 82 in the consolidated

5:29:26is the 100% renewable energy slide.

5:29:29So we're doing the transit hub, the electrification

5:29:32of the buses.

5:29:33This is a reserve that's going to be in a deficit position

5:29:37for the foreseeable future, right?

5:29:40Are there assumptions that we can modify in 100% renewable

5:29:47where we are making progress on net zero as promised?

5:29:51I mean, what's the differential on projects

5:29:55when we're saying it has to be net zero and 100% renewable?

5:29:59And again, I'm not playing favorite.

5:30:01People have asked us to really look at this budget critically.

5:30:04Are there assumptions that could change?

5:30:07Are there timelines that could be extended

5:30:10to make this?

5:30:13It's not about making the graph work.

5:30:14It's about doing the right thing.

5:30:16But what is the 100% renewable energy policy costing

5:30:23on projects?

5:30:28So through the mayor to counsel or work,

5:30:32a lot of our 100 RE projects.

5:30:34Sorry, can you speak in sorry?

5:30:36A little thanks.

5:30:38A lot of our 100 RE projects, well,

5:30:41there's a couple of buckets of them.

5:30:42So when we talk about race to zero, for instance,

5:30:45we talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

5:30:50And you'll recall that when we brought this up

5:30:53a couple of years ago, we were not

5:30:54sure of how much money that was going to cost us.

5:30:58We do 100 RE projects as well.

5:31:02And those are mainly opportunity projects.

5:31:08So when we don't go looking to remove and replace something

5:31:11that still has useful service life in it,

5:31:14we do it as part of our, in conjunction with our asset

5:31:17management plan, in order to make sure

5:31:19that we're getting the most life, if you will,

5:31:22out of the equipment that we've got.

5:31:26And we're replacing it with something

5:31:28that's more efficient that's actually

5:31:30going to show energy savings.

5:31:32It's going to show greenhouse gas emission reductions

5:31:34in the future.

5:31:35So I'm just not sure I'm answering your question,

5:31:41because I'm not sure I understood it.

5:31:44But I think where I'm going with this,

5:31:47and you can redirect the question if I didn't quite

5:31:49get it right, that we are trying our best whenever we can

5:31:53to make sure that we're looking at all of our capital projects

5:31:56through a climate change lens.

5:31:59We did make a commitment to 100 RE.

5:32:01So when we're looking at net zero projects,

5:32:04and we're looking at South End, we're looking at Baker,

5:32:06those are all net zero projects.

5:32:08And then you've heard when all of our planning meetings,

5:32:11when developers come forward, they put near net zero

5:32:14or net zero ready.

5:32:15There was a cost associated with that.

5:32:18We haven't done a big analysis on what

5:32:22the return on investment on that is.

5:32:25We look at greenhouse gas emission reductions,

5:32:27and then we also look at the cost of the project.

5:32:29What we do know is that we are seeing, when we do a wide look

5:32:35at what we've been doing, what that looks like in terms

5:32:38of energy savings, greenhouse gas emissions, cost savings,

5:32:42we are seeing reductions, and then we are seeing results.

5:32:45What we haven't done is a return on investment,

5:32:47because sometimes you don't have a return on investment.

5:32:50Sometimes you are spending money on something.

5:32:52It results in greenhouse gas emission reductions,

5:32:56but there might not be a financial business case that

5:32:59makes sense.

5:32:59So we do try to make sure we get both.

5:33:02And that's why we're seeing some of those projects

5:33:04that we're not really sure of have been moved out,

5:33:06and that puts our race to zero climate change goals

5:33:10in jeopardy at this point.

5:33:14OK, thanks.

5:33:16A big picture question I have through Margot 3

5:33:19is when we do our master plans, when we go out and do

5:33:23consultations, so we do consultations and people say,

5:33:25yeah, I want to every park to have a splash pad,

5:33:28and right people want this great stuff.

5:33:30And when we do our master plans, our staff

5:33:33give us their best recommendation for the absolute best

5:33:36thing we can do in this period of time.

5:33:42When they do that planning, do we

5:33:44have a constraint of this is the budget for the next five

5:33:48years or the next 10 years?

5:33:49Like how do we package that up?

5:33:51Because now we're sitting with a bunch of master plans

5:33:54that all together, and I mention it pretty much every time

5:33:56a master plan comes, like can we afford this master plan?

5:34:01So when we do our master plans, is there

5:34:04a process at which we do this gut check of we'd like to do this,

5:34:09but this is what's possible in the moment?

5:34:12Or is that the exercise we're doing now?

5:34:15Because we're the wrong people to be kind of prioritizing

5:34:18on some of this stuff.

5:34:20So through the mayor, I think I'll

5:34:22start because you referenced parks,

5:34:24but obviously there's master plans that go simply

5:34:27beyond public services.

5:34:28But I think parks is a good example.

5:34:30And I think CAO Stewart mentioned it in his speaking notes.

5:34:33The master plan really charts the course,

5:34:35but the budget is the gas pedal.

5:34:37And I know that we probably sound a bit cliche when we say that.

5:34:41But the master plans, when you look at a master plan

5:34:43from a parks point of view or a parks and rec master plan,

5:34:46that needs to be the visionary strategic goal

5:34:49that we set for what we want this community to look like.

5:34:52And it's difficult when we're doing those master plans,

5:34:55because we don't really want to constrain the great ideas

5:34:58coming forward with a budget conversation when we're

5:35:01necessarily doing that master planning work,

5:35:04I'm using parks and rec master plan as an example.

5:35:07But then the budget process has to overlay it.

5:35:10And so sometimes the gas pedal, I think

5:35:13I mentioned it with transit, what was a 10 year plan

5:35:16is now probably going to be a 13 year plan,

5:35:18because we needed to ease up a little bit on the pace at which

5:35:20we were doing it.

5:35:21It doesn't mean that that plan that we developed for transit

5:35:25is not still exactly the vision that we

5:35:27want for our transit system.

5:35:29We just had to slow the pace down.

5:35:31So that I would say, certainly in the public services side

5:35:35of things is kind of how we approach the planning work

5:35:40in related to budget.

5:35:41But I'll see if any of my colleagues, Ms. Holmes,

5:35:44looks like she's going to jump in as well.

5:35:46Thank you.

5:35:46And through the mayor to councillor work.

5:35:48So similarly, when we're doing, yes, as master plans,

5:35:53the very high vision, they, sorry.

5:35:58Sorry, I don't know why I don't.

5:35:59Anyway, sorry, just keep bugging me if you can't hear me.

5:36:03So our master plans do look at very high level things.

5:36:07They usually just look at one area.

5:36:09And so what we're trying to do is that when we come to budget,

5:36:12that's the time when we're looking at putting everything

5:36:15all together and seeing how they all fit together.

5:36:18And as the different projects start then

5:36:21to go through their design, that's

5:36:24what we can make design decisions in terms of cost, what

5:36:26makes sense, what fits with some other projects,

5:36:29what needs to be delayed because something

5:36:30makes sense to do together.

5:36:33So the master plans really are the very high vision looking

5:36:37at what needs to be done way in the future.

5:36:41But when we start to get into detailed design

5:36:44and those projects start to become operationalized,

5:36:47that's an opportunity for us to connect all the dots

5:36:49between them all.

5:36:50And that's why it's so great that we've

5:36:51had so many of those master plans that have just been redone.

5:36:54They're all new, newish.

5:36:57So there's good information in there

5:36:59so that we're not trying to connect a master plan that

5:37:03was done in 2023 to a master plan that was done in 2009

5:37:06that doesn't make any sense.

5:37:10Thanks.

5:37:10Through you, Mayor Guthra, my last question

5:37:12is just about the continuous improvement office.

5:37:17And we won't be able to do some of the lean black belt stuff.

5:37:20It's a bit of a concern because that's

5:37:22where we're trying to drive efficiency.