Draft 2021 North Perth Combined Operating and Capital Budget

Finance Department: Capital Overview 2020 Overview and 2021 Projects Review: The Projects within the Finance Department are under two areas: General Processing, Financing and Accounting North Perth currently uses a manual budgeting process that does not provide a multi-year forecast required legislatively or a secure database for departmental AMPs, Development Charges Background and all other Financial Planning. Through an RFR process, the Municipality has selected a budgeting software application solution for corporate use. Staff will be implementing this new application for the 2022 budgeting process.

A Development Charges Background Study was completed and implemented in August 2019.

With changes in legislative requirements, attention will be given to necessary amendments in 2021.

Our current payroll solution is web-based and includes direct employee data input, layered approvals, security, appropriate audit trails and legislative compliance. As well, it has been integrated with our current HR software, InfoHR, for shared data input. Unfortunately, the payroll application has proven to be less effective than we had hoped with regard to ease of use and maintenance. As well, the auditors do not feel that it has the security measures necessary to ensure the separation of duties and data from payroll to HR. In light of these concerns, new payroll/HR software will be reviewed and analyzed by staff and BDO for compliance and replacement. Department Heads and IT Governance Committee have rated this as a priority. Staff, in conjunction with BDO, are in the process of preparing a request for proposal for a new application for payroll and an integrated human resources application that will continue to provide the established employee services and needed improvements for maintenance and audit requirements.

In consideration of current legislation, Council has established a Strategic Asset Management Policy based on approved levels of service, documented condition rating and risk assessments for all municipal assets. The 2020 plans to move forward with next steps were deferred due to Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) delayed funding announcements and redirected internal resources. For 2021, staff are planning on getting back on track to address data and information needs for each department and update this data, verify condition assessment for each asset category and refine levels of service as per Council’s service targets. North Perth is still making application for the FCM funding but will be moving forward with the work plan regardless of this funding approval.

Information Technology Services During the spring of 2020, Information Technology (IT) projects were somewhat derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the IT needs of the Corporation for continued operation and service (i.e. remote access for Council, Staff and the public). IT staff provided new applications such