- To address the foregoing motion, administration did seek responses from other municipalities across Ontario as to their budget process and annual reporting.
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Administration received the budget template as utilized by the City of Toronto (as attached to the Agenda).
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Will be requesting Annual Budgets from the BIA’s along with their audited statements.
D. Croucher states the template provided is very onerous in terms of the financial reporting and offers to share the DWBIA budget template with the BIA’s as it is less detail oriented.
J. Guthrie adds she is not suggesting the use of the Toronto template but is shows a more comprehensive model.
The Acting Chair expresses concern that 10% of the BIA budgets will go to the time, effort and cost associated with the financial reporting mechanism.
J. Guthrie reports that administration is looking for comments on the projected actuals column that will help to facilitate the variance reporting requirement She notes PwC will be reviewing this to ensure consistency with all of the BIA’s and adds a more fulsome budget template will be provided to the BIA’s in February to use for their 2020 budget submission.
In response to a question asked by B. Scheuerman regarding if administration is seeking more information on how the BIA budgets are spent, J. Guthrie responds City Council requested this information relating to their 2020 budget submission. In terms of reserves in the BIA’s, this will be included in the reporting package.
The Acting Chair provides clarification that the BIA’s have full power to spend their budgets as they wish, however, they will have to disclose to the municipality how it’s being spent. He states administration is looking to streamline the budget process to include the budget variance report within the current budget submission.
J. Guthrie remarks that she will attend a future WBIAAC meeting to discuss outstanding issues around the financial statements and the Annual Report.
P. DiPonio indicates that the BIA’s are already filing financial reports along with their Board minutes and questions if these documents should constitute an annual report.