We’ve already scheduled one Committee of the Whole meeting, but what about a second Committee of the Whole meeting? This unusual move is coming to you from the financial office and Strong Mayor Powers as committee will sit to review the City’s 2023 financials, and to review Mayor Cam Guthrie’s request to have staff look at the creation of a temporary structured encampment.
NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting in-person or via tele-presense but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on Friday May 10. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.
NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.
Court Services: Transfer of Part III and Part IX Prosecutions under the Provincial Offences Act to the City of Guelph and implementation of Administrative Penalty System for Parking – That’s a lot of legal jargon! Part III of the Act covers Highway Traffic Act offences like speeding and parking, and Part IV covers property crimes like trespassing and property damage. The transfer of prosecutions dovetails nicely into changes to the penalty system for parking infractions, in this case the use of a Screening Officer who can review and make a decision to affirm, cancel, reduce, or extend the penalty for a ticket issued by a bylaw or compliance officer.
2023 Year-end Capital Budget Monitoring Report – It was a record year for capital with $125.1 million in capital spending, and the City reached 81 per cent in terms of fulfilling the approved budget commitment for the year, which is an increase of 20 per cent from 2021. There were 31 projects completed in 2023, and a total net surplus of $1.6 million. In terms of a change in capital spending, staff are asking council to move up the purchase of seven new ambulances due to the long lag time now between ordering new vehicles and receiving them.
2023 Year-end Operating Budget Monitoring Report and Surplus Allocation and Deficit Funding – Last year, the City of Guelph had a surplus of about 1.4 per cent or $7.3 million in the tax-supported departments while the non-tax supported departments enjoyed a $3.4 million surplus. Credit goes to leveraging staff vacancies to balance out the increases with inflation, but there are a few deficits on the ledger for Court Services, Parking, and the Guelph Public Library. Staff are recommending that the surplus be transfer into various contingency reserves and to cover the deficit in those three areas.
2023 Long-term Financial Statement: Reserves and Debt – The City’s reserve funds increased by 6.5 per cent in 2023, or $31.5 million in 2023, and the total available balance at the end of 2023 was $160.8 million, an increase of 35.3 per cent. On the debt side, the City had outstanding $111.9 million with debt servicing at 3.4 per cent of own-source revenue, while sitting comfortably within in the annual repayment limit of 25 per cent. There was also an increase in the collection of development charges in 2023, $26.3 million in 2023 compared to $20.9 million the year before, but having said that discounts and exemptions for DCs were 176 per cent higher year over year, which has created shortfalls on some reserve funds.
Mayoral Direction B4: Temporary Structured Encampment – This report follows up on the mayor’s direction to investigate the creation of a temporary structured encampment akin to A Better Tent City in Kitchener. The “too long; didn’t read” of the report is that staff do not recommend proceeding at this time, first and foremost because this is Wellington County’s jurisdiction as the Consolidated Municipal Services Manager (CMSM), but they also weren’t able to find a suitable location on public or private land.
Also, the preliminary upfront costs are between $2 million and $2.5 million for 50 modular units, there’s presently no grant money from the upper levels of government, and staff are concerned that doing outside fundraising from the community will have an impact on other initiatives like “Home For Good”, which is still a couple of million dollars from the finish line. In terms of wraparound services, the needs require more than one service to fill the gaps and there’s a question of capacity. Finally, there was an informal survey of people with lived experience, and roughly 50 per cent of respondents would be open to moving into a temporary structured encampment site and that a majority of respondents believe the site should take a low-barrier approach to guests, pets and substance use.
For all these reasons, staff are recommending that they take no further action on this.
Guelph Politico 