Finance

2021 City budget
Working together for our Future
Operating

Finance

What we do

The City’s Finance department provides financial accountability and transparency to City activities and decisions through robust Council reporting and strong internal financial control structures. This team develops and maintains a long-term financial policy and forecasts that make Guelph economically resilient and flexible to respond to emerging priorities. Part of that long-term vision is to recommend corporate financial strategies to fund the key actions in the Strategic Plan. We manage the corporate treasury function including liquidity planning, investment strategy, debt capacity and reserve forecasts.

Across the organization, we offer business support through LEAN training to action continuous improvement projects on service delivery processes, which will create service capacity, mitigate inflationary budget pressures, and increase productivity. The Finance team coordinates and delivers the city budget and enables Council’s financial governance role through frequent financial reporting including operating and capital budget monitoring. We also ensure legislation compliance while executing property taxes, development charges, annual audited financial statements, competitive procurement, indirect taxes, and provincial and grant reporting.

Why we do it

Finance is a key stakeholder to uphold the Working Together for our Future Strategic Plan pillar to run an effective, fiscally responsible and trusted local government. Leading and supporting a long-term financial strategy that is achievable and affordable, our quest for a culture of innovation and high performance, and our efforts to create greater customer experiences through digital and customer service, are what drive this team on a daily basis.

2021 to 2024+ initiatives

  • Investigate the Prudent Investor Standard and options for accessing this legislation to diversify the City’s investment portfolio and maximize portfolio returns.
  • Implement the next phase of the Long-term Financial Framework with a focus on corporate revenue and user fee policy development.
  • Lead the corporate update and implementation of the new Community Benefit Charge Strategy, Parkland Dedication Bylaw and Development Charge Study resulting from legislation changes.
  • Support the planned improvements and software upgrades to the City’s corporate financial information systems including the transition of procurement into the enterprise financial system, implementation of a corporate maintenance management system, replacement of a modernized taxation software, and implementation of an expense processing system.
  • Further the implementation of the Continuous Improvement Office with a focus on LEAN training principles that support implementing efficiency projects and reporting on successful outcomes.
  • Support the financial modeling and costing of the Official Plan update, the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan and a number of service-level master plans.

Budget details

Operating budget—Revenues and expenses

2021 budget impacts

$86,100 or 2.7% net decrease in budget in 2021 due to:

  • Increase in contracted services with offsetting increase in external revenue for additional financial services to be delivered to Guelph Junction Railway because of a contractual change for these services.
  • The remaining budget change is inflationary in nature.

2022 to 2024 budget impacts

  • $261,270 net increase in budget from 2022 to 2024 due to inflationary pressures.