a) Finance Recap/Overview

Finance Department: Operating Overview

2020 Review and 2021 Outlook

General Processing and Accounting:

The Finance Department will be focusing on the implementation of the Council approved 2021 Finance Department Business Plan priorities, as part of ongoing operational responsibilities, to advance the strategic goals of the Municipality of North Perth. Project priorities will be integrated with operational expectations for the department. In 2020, the Finance staffing complement was completely filled, for the first time in a few years, with fully engaged and well trained staff to complete the work and serve the public. Additional staff hours have enabled the department to cope with the increase in the number of annual transactions for audit, volume increase, legislative changes, asset management detail, funding documentation, supplemental tax billings and additional ongoing billings for taxes, water/wastewater, day care, etc. The Finance and Purchasing Assistant position has steadily increased the supportive role for Department Heads and Supervisors that ensures all necessary documents are circulated and received for each purchase. The Bids and Tender software application continues to ensure a fair and competitive purchasing process for more and more products and services. Electrical trade and professional engineering services were addressed by proposal requests for rostering these services in 2020. Additional trades/services will be focused on this year. During 2020, Council and the Management Team were provided with an updated Purchasing By-law for consideration. Another draft will be circulated early in 2021 for consideration which will incorporate input from Council, staff and the municipal solicitor, as needed. This update is to be completed in 2021 as part of the Business Plan.

KPMG consultants completed an Administrative Process Efficiency Review in 2020. From their draft report, the Finance Department is anticipating the development and implementation of new policies and processes within the department during the coming months, as per the direction of Council.

In an effort manage increased workload through efficiencies, the Finance Department staff continued to document processes and procedures for the various aspects of each position within the department. We are continuing to document Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for all processes. This endeavor gives us the opportunity to review our processes for efficiencies, as well as documenting each task for cross training initiatives. SOP documentation will continue in 2021 as we have made a number of changes to refine operations. This will include the Donation Policy note in the 2021 Business Plan. Accounting and reporting polices and processes are being analyzed closely by Finance staff and the Management Team to determine if any changes need to executed prior to the implementation of the new budgeting software as part of the 2021 Business Plan. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) implemented a new process for public access in North Perth but, unfortunately, this was discontinued due to COVID

restrictions. We hope this process will start up again sometime in 2021 so that an assessor is in our office one day a month to work with staff on outstanding matters and to meet with the public upon requested. This arrangement began in October of 2019 and was working out very well for all parties. Property assessment by MPAC within North Perth has improved dramatically over the past year. MPAC is now capturing new assessment, property use changes and severances in a timely manner. We still have some outstanding assessment issues from prior years that we plan to clean up in 2021. Given their new performance level, hopefully, MPAC will feel comfortable committing to a 95% or better performance objective in future agreements. Assessment support training for staff was curtailed in 2020, therefore, we continue to work with our assessment consultant, as needed.

MPAC did not roll out the new assessments in 2020 and we are anticipating that this will not happen in 2021 either. The Province has, however, announced that municipalities will be able to implement new sub classes for business. We are promoting to work with the County and other lower-tier municipalities with regard to the options that might be available upon seeing the regulations. It is anticipated that this could affect not only tax shifts for the North Perth levy but also for the County levy amongst the four lower-tiers. This process will be part of the Tax Ratio consideration to support Commercial Businesses within the Finance Business Plan. Ongoing communications with the public will be fielded by staff to address assessments and ratio/class changes. Council updated the municipal Asset Management Plan (AMP) in 2020 to consider service delivery level. In addition to specific project work, the AMP implementation is underway and will have long-term benefits for the financial management of North Perth’s assets. Working with all other Departments, the corporate asset data base is being reviewed in detail to ensure GIS location, accuracy, condition rating and completeness. As well, the asset inventory, GIS location and values are reconciled with our accounting processes to confirm data accuracy for the basis of long-term financial forecasting for each departmental financial plan. Staff training and budget integration will be ongoing in 2021 to meet all legislative requirements and the priorities of the Finance Business Plan.

Information Technology Services:

Information Technology Services (IT) will be focusing on the implementation of the Council approved 2021 IT Business Plan priorities, as part of ongoing operational responsibilities, to advance the strategic goals of the Municipality of North Perth. The IT Governance Group was initiated in 2020. The Group has established their terms of reference and set some priorities within their scope. Their recommendations will help focus limited resources as all municipal services are becoming more reliant on IT tools throughout the organization. Increased demand from each department requires ongoing upgrades to utilize new technologies and to meet the legislative, public information, documentation, accessibility, etc. demands. The Group will promote priorities and ensure the integration of applications for efficient installation and utilization throughout the organization. IT staff were kept extremely busy in 2020 to address Council and staff needs for remote access to ongoing municipal operations. It is anticipated that this level of support will continue

in the short-term and will be maintained, to some degree, for the long-term. The new tools have enable Council and staff operating flexibility. The IT Operating Budget for 2021 has been separated from the general Finance Department and it is the intent for 2022 that the IT cost center will be fully allocated to all other departments serviced. The 2020 budget has been restated for comparison purposes and all software annual support fees, for applications used by/for most departments, will be expensed in IT and allocated with the other IT related costs.

The 2021 IT Operating Budget includes costing for an additional human resources to sustain the ongoing increase in support require throughout the organization and provide time for project work to completed as outlined in the 2021 Business Plan

BIA:

A detailed 2021 Operating Budget Report for the BIA was presented to Council on December 9th, 2020 by Scott Patterson, Chair, and it was approved at that time. The resulting BIA tax rate is applied to commercial property assessment within the expanded Listowel BIA area.

Conservation Authorities:

The Maitland Valley and Grand River Conservation Authorities have not provided their annual draft budgets and levy requisitions for 2021. Once provided, they will be included in 2021 Operating Budget package. The municipal operating budget for 2021 includes an estimated budget request for both Authorities.

Perth Meadows:

A separate presentation will be provided to Council regarding Perth Meadows Operations/Capital Budget on January 27th, 2021 or at a regular Council meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Frances Hale Director of Finance/Treasurer