Testing. Testing. Check check check. Testing. Testing. One, two, three. Check. Check. One, two, three. Testing. Testing. One, two, three. Check. Check. One, two, three. Sound check. All right, good morning everyone. Bonjourus. Welcome to today's audit committee meeting. Uh, as you can see, we have a very full agenda. So, we will get right at it. But just a reminder that uh for the reports submitted by the office of the auditor general, we'll first ask questions of the OG after their presentation. We'll start with questions from committee members, then from other members of council, and city staff are available for questions after questions to the OAG are complete. Again, we'll start with members, then uh uh their members of council. Okay, let's get started. Uh regrets, there's none to date and I'll ask the committee coordinator to call the role. Eric, please. Thanks. >> Councelor Brown, >> here. >> Councelor Carr, >> here. >> Councelor Hill, >> present. Councelor Kavanagh >> present. >> Councelor Kits >> here. >> Vice Chair Hubley >> here. >> Chair Curry >> here. >> You have quum chair. >> Thank you very much, Eric. Um, as an initial housekeeping matter, I'll ask for a motion to add the Office of the Auditor General reports to the agenda as they were distributed uh and published after the agenda. Vice Chair Huby, could you please move that motion? >> Thank you, Chair. Uh, be it resolved that the audit committee approved the addition of the following reports distributed to members and published with the agenda on November 3rd pursuant to subsection 89 bracket 3 of the procedures bylaw being the bylaw number 2025-100 to allow for consideration of these reports. One, office of the audio general se semianual report on follow-up procedures uh BVG011 office of the audio general external quality assessment report BVG012 office of the audio general review of overtime uh BVG013 and office of the audio general audit of curbside collection um curbside garbage collection sorry uh BVG G014. And finally, Office of the Auditor General Audit of 311 BVG015. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Huby. Is that carried? >> Carried. Thank you. Uh, declarations of interest. None. Um, we don't have any delegations. Just I didn't make that point, but we don't. Uh, so the first item is the confirmation of the minutes from June 19th, 2026. Those minutes carried. carried. Thank you. Next item is the confidential minutes uh June 19th uh 2026. Are those carried? >> Carried. All right. Uh next item is the Finance and Corporate Services Department 2026 KPMG financial statement audit plan. Uh we'll wait till that KPMG members get to the front desk. You all set? Great. Okay, I'll let you do your introductions and thank you very much for being here. >> Oh, there we go. Perfect. Um, so good morning. Thank you for having us here. here. I'm Rebecca McDonald, the lead audit engagement party for the city of Ottawa, and it's our pleasure to present the December 31st, 2026 financial statement audit plan for the year. On our next slide, we go through our team members. So, we're supported by a number of additional audit partners and I'm joined by my colleague Inis this afternoon, who's the senior manager leading the financial statement audit. On our next slide, we have our audit highlights for the year. The one key matter I would speak to is the matter of independence. So, we remain independent of the city of Ottawa. We have not performed any additional services for the city that could be thought to encroach on our independence given that is the value we bring as your external auditors. On the following slide, we give some updates to our audit plan um compared to past years. So some matters to note would be some evolving changes to the framework regard regarding development charges in Ontario. So there's been some recent changes in provincial legislator provincial legislator legislation around bill 17 that may have potential implications relating to the timing and amount of development charges that are recognized. So we've had discussions with management and we'll be monitoring their assessment and respond response to these changes. The other matter of significance this year is the uh significant weather event in July. So this had impacts to the infrastructure, the facilities and the O train assets for the city. So from our audit perspective, we'll be looking at management's assessment of those financial implic implications, their identification and quantification of those damages, as well as any potential asset impairments or write offs and any provisions that are required related to the restoration of those assets. In line with that, we'll also be assessing the insurance recoveries, including the extent of the coverage and the timing of the recognition of those recoveries should they be available. and their implications to the financial statement disclosures. On the bottom half of the slide, we speak to changes from our side of the house. So, it is a quiet year with respect to accounting standard and auditing standard changes. So, nothing impacting the 2026 year end. There will be changes impacting your 2027 year end with respect to public sector accounting standard changes. So we've been working with management to understand their position on the changes and their implementation and we'll stay tuned to that throughout the year to ensure that they're prepared come your 2027 year end. On the following slide is our materiality for the year end. It's $150 million for the city's financial statements as a whole. So these are the consolidated financial statements for the city and again this is the quantum with which we feel users of the financial statements would be impacted in decisionm that does translate to an audit misstatement posting threshold of 7.5 million. So to the extent we identify any differences above that threshold we would be bringing those forward to management to request that those are corrected and communicating those back to this committee in our audit findings report. On the following slide, we go through our group audit scoping. So, our overall materiality is 150 million, but that does translate to 130 million for the standalone city of Ottawa financial statements. As you know, the statements are consolidated, so the other components are listed there. And we do not consider them significant components when it comes to the overall financial position of the city, but we do perform standalone financial statement audits for Hydro Ottawa, the Ottawa Community Housing Corporation, and the business improvement areas. And I'll turn it over to Inennis to speak through our significant risks for the year. >> Uh, thank you, Rebecca. on the next slide. Thank you. Um the first significant risk here is uh the uh management override of control uh which is uh something the standard requires us to look at for all entities. It is uh without exception and it is due to the fact that management is in a unique uh position to perpetrate fraud um and um perpetrate fraudulent report financial reporting. So our plan response as a result to that uh risk is that we will uh do a test of significant journal entries. We will look at uh any uh retrospective review of estimates and we will obtain uh a rationale and support for any significant or unusual entries that were recorded in the current year that is consistent to prior year. Uh if we go to the next slide please. Thank you. The next risk is uh the presumption of uh fraudulent revenue recognition and that is also something the standard requires us to assume that there is incentives uh to overstate revenues uh in the financial statements and uh this is something that has been rebutted uh for a number of years for the city due to the fact that uh we have assessed that there's no significant incentive uh for the city personnel to overstate revenues and uh fraudulently. And uh the next slide please. The next important risk for the city and that is um is the consolidation process. Uh the reason for this is that it's highly complex. Uh there's a number of entities that are consolidated within the city of Ottawa consolidated financial statements and there is potential uh risk of error and omissions. Um what we would do is similar to last year we will perform a design and implementation uh over the processes that are um responsible for uh the consolidation. We will involve our IT audit for any automated controls uh relating to the consolidation process. We will also obtain the consolidation workbook from management and reperform any key significant consolidation entries. And we will obtain support for any significant amounts and of course we will uh ask management to explain any significant variances from our expectations uh versus what they have under consolidation schedule. And that is it for the significant risk. I will pass it along to Rebecca. And then our last slide um goes through our timeline for the year. So quite consistent with past years. Um although we had originally drafted this report to bring forward to the September audit committee and and here in November, our interimm audit work will follow later in November and our year-end audit fieldwork will commence midappril and be prepared to be back before this committee in June with our audit findings and draft financial statements for your recommendation. So that would conclude the highlights from our audit planning report and certainly welcome any questions should there be some from the committee. >> Great. Thank you very much for that. All right. Uh questions for KPMG. >> Uh Councelor Kavanagh. >> Yeah, thank you. Um I appreciate this uh the work. Um, and I was interested in how the um, storm of July 1st um, fit into what you were doing. Um, you were talking about it and where we're going to see um, the effects of that. Is are you is that would that be in the next report? >> So, the financial implications will be within your financial statements any additional costs or acrruals as well as any potential insurance recoveries or amounts being recorded. And then we'll be performing specific audit procedures to assess the amounts that management has recorded in the financial statements to ensure that they're complete and accurate and the amounts exist. >> Yeah. So, so that everyone understands that once we've gone through it and our finances show it, then you will audit afterwards. >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thanks for that clarification. Any other questions? I don't think so. All right. So, we just have to uh receive this. Um, so our recommendation is that the audit committee and council receive this report for information. Is this report received? >> It's received. >> Thank you. And thank you very much for coming to speak to us today about what your plan is. See you soon. All right. Next item. Item 5.1, Office of the Auditor General Semiannual Report on Follow-up Procedures. There's no presentation here. Did you have any other comment you want to start with? No. Okay. Any questions on the follow-up procedures? >> You're good. Okay. It doesn't seem anyone has any questions on this one. Um, but thank you very much for that. Um, so our report recommendation is that the audit committee recommend council receive the semiannual report on follow-up procedures. Is this item carried? carried. Thank you. All right. Item 5.2, Office of the Auditor General External Quality Assessment Report. >> Good morning, chair and members of the audit committee. Our first presentation today will cover the external quality assessment of our office. As you may recall, the global internal audit standards require office at least every 5 years to obtain an independent assessment of our practices to confirm conformance with the Institute of Internal Auditors global internal audit standards. That's a mouthful. The last external assessment of the OG was conducted back in 2021. The IIA Quality Services was engaged in the spring of 2026 to complete an independent assessment. With us today online is Maryanne Ever Avarillo, the lead assist the lead assessor from the IIA. She will be happy to answer any questions committee members may have after our presentation. The results of the external quality assessment were communicated directly by the IIA to the mayor and the chair of the audit committee last month. The assessment concluded that the office of the auditor general fully achieves the standards. This level of achievement demonstrates conformance to all 52 standards. This is the highest rating available and confirms that our office our office operates in conformance with internationally recognized internal auditing standards and demonstrates a mature and effective audit function. As a result of achieving the highest rating, the office was also awarded the IIA global quality certification, which allows us to use the audit excellence badge that you can see at the bottom of the screen on this slide. Overall, these results provide independent assurance to council, the audit committee, and residents that the office continues to operate at the highest professional level. I'm very proud of my team for all of their hard work in achieving this result. I'd also like to take a moment to thank members of management and members of council that parttook in this uh assessment whether it was through an interview or a response to a survey. It's very much appreciated. So, thank you. As part of the assessment, the assessment team identified a number of successful practices and enhancement opportunities. Overall, the office was recognized for its strong audit practices, professional reputation, and commitment to delivering high-quality services to the city. The opportunities for continuous improvement that were identified primarily related to governance documentation, succession planning, methodology alignment, and performance measurement. In all cases, the office has either implemented the recommended enhancement or has actions underway to address them. The OG carefully considered all opportunities identified and as I'd mentioned, we've taken appropriate action. Specifically, the IIA recommended adding references to the auditor general's mandate authorities and oversight of the fraud and waste hotline within the audit charter. While these roles and responsibilities were already outlined within the auditor general bylaw as well as the fraud and waste policy, we've updated the audit charter to reflect these elements. That's why you have a motion before you to recommend to council the approval of the recommended audit charter. Collectively, these opportunities build upon an already strong foundation and support the office's ongoing commitment to continuous improvement and audit excellence. Chair, while this concludes my presentation, I'd like to provide uh Maryanne, the lead assessor, with an opportunity to say a few words if she'd like. >> Absolutely. Maryannne or Good morning. Uh through you, chair. >> Pardon me. >> Through you, chair. >> Sorry. Yes, through me. Yes. Whatever you'd like to say, we're listening. >> Excellent. Thank you. So, uh first off, I'd like to thank the Office of the Auditor General for engaging the Institute of the Internal Auditors or the IIA to conduct the OAG's required 5-year external quality assessment. Much congratulations to the OAG under Natalie's leadership in obtaining the IIA's highest quality rating it fully achieves. This is an extraordinary accomplishment and that is not easily obtained. The OAG is the second Canadian public sector internal audit function to obtain this rating since the changes to the standards and the introduction of the new four-point rating took effect in January 2025. Overall, the IIA has issued three of these highest ratings. The other is to an American public sector internal audit function. In comparison, about 24 have been issued to internal audit functions in the private sector, of which one one was to a Canadian internal audit function. This achievement by the OAG recognizes that there are differences from the private sector in the application of the standards and sends a clear message to internal audit functions within the public sector that this highest rating is attainable. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Natalie, you know, you must be so proud. You should be so proud. I know you are so proud of you and your entire office. So, congratulations to you. It's quite the uh special achievement really. Very few audit shops have received it. And uh we are so lucky to have you and to have this caliber of of an you know, office of the auditor general at the city of Ottawa. So, any questions to the uh auditor general or to Miam? Uh, councelor Kavanagh. >> I just wanted to add my uh congratulations on such amazing marks. I wish I could get those in school. That that that's just fantastic and we're very lucky to have you. And um what I appreciate is that this isn't just about finances. This is about um quality control and um and ethical standards as well. and I really appreciate the the uh the outreach that you've done um to uh the on the diverse issues that we've asked you to take into consideration and that you've managed to come up with uh responses for. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much, counselor. >> All right. So, um we do have two recommendations. One is that the audit committee recommend council receive the external quality assessment report and the other is that the audit committee recommend that council approve the office of the auditor general's audit charter. Are these recommendations carried? >> Carried. >> Carried. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you very much, Maryanne, for joining us and thank you for all of your hard work. >> Thank you. Take care. >> You too. All right. That brings us to item 5.3. Office the auditor general review of overtime. Thank you once again, chair. Um, so before we get started and walk you through the details, I wanted to take uh just a few moments to say some general remarks about all of the reports. Um, obviously we've had a lot of work going on over the past year. It's kept my team extremely busy. Um, that in turn means we are keeping management very busy. So, um, I I obviously can't list everyone, but I do want to say thank you to Rick and to LA and to Sirill uh for your teams. assistance and cooperation. Uh we've had a lot of work going on like I mentioned, but also with a lot of key uh issues. Uh our most of our audits and reviews were wrapping up during a very difficult period of time this summer. So uh we really appreciate all of their efforts and thank you to the city manager's office obviously for their continued support. We will now present the review of overtime. As a result of several fraud and waste hotline reports and the continued need for diligent use of limited city resources, we conducted a review of overtime use across the city. The city has an overtime policy which states that overtime may be authorized when management is satisfied that work or services is necessary and that overtime is the most appropriate and or costeffective means for providing the service. Overtime can obviously occur due to different operational requirements and challenges. The city incurred $61.7 million of overtime in 2024 and just over $70 million in 2025. Management has indicated to us that the amount of overtime incurred by differing operating departments over the years is a direct result of unfilled vacancies or staff shortages and a backlog of work. As a result, there's reliance on overtime by both staff and management to manage ongoing operations. The objective of our review was to assess the city's overtime policies and processes. The review covered overtime work during the period of January 1st, 2024 until the end of of 2025. Based on a risk assessment, we selected specific areas across the city for inclusion into the scope of the review. This included three operational areas within transit services, roads operation within public works, as well as water distributions within infrastructure and water services. The review identified opportunities for improvement related to roads operations and water distributions and these particular findings were provided to management in a management letter. I will now pass the presentation over to audit principal Ria Kana who will walk you through the results of this review. >> Thank you Natalie and good morning everyone. So next slide please. Thank you. The more significant issues related to overtime were found in OC transpo and as a result the findings we'll be presenting today are focused solely on the transit services department. The first finding is related to the rationale and awarding of overtime. There are several reasons why overtime can be incurred with an OC transpo based on operational requirements as outlined in the relative in the relevant collective agreement. Overtime work will be booked on a seniority basis. So we reviewed a sample of overtime transactions to assess whether overtime was incurred based on an operational requirement that the rationale for the overtime was documented and overtime was offered in alignment with the seniority requirements from available documentation. We could not consistently identify the rationale for the overtime hours or how it was offered. We understand that there is no formal requirement to document the assignment of overtime based seniority and management has noted that it's not always feasible for the most senior employee to take the shift. Furthermore, it was noted that the current process for offering overtime while embedded in the collective agreement has caused operational challenges including recruitment and retention issues. Our review further identified that the process for over offering overtime is not perceived as being fair and equitable. Without clear expectations related to the docu related to documentation of the rationale for overtime and how it was offered, the city cannot demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the applicable collective agreements nor the need for overtime. The next finding is related to approval and payment of overtime. Scheduled or overtime planned in advance is managed through Hastess for bus and rail operators. For reference, HASS is a system used by OC transpo to plan, schedule, and track operations for bus and rail operators. Any additional hours outside of what is planned or scheduled for operators is recorded on a manual time sheet by the employee and submitted to a supervisor for verification and approval before manually entering the information into hostess. On the other hand, overtime is managed differently in fleet maintenance where all timekeeping and time administration is fully paperbased whereby employees fill out and submit a paper time sheet to a supervisor before it is entered into SAP from available documentation. We could not consistently see supervisory approvals on time sheets. We also did notice some instances in our sample testing where there was an where there was a discrepancy in what an employee worked as captured in Hastess or the time sheet versus what they were paid in SAP. Insufficient evidence of approval of overtime does not enable the city to demonstrate that the overtime paid was justified or appropriate. Next slide, please. The next finding is related to hours of service and collective bargaining requirements. As operators and maintainers of commercial vehicles, OC Transfer requires all bus and electric rail operators and mechanics and garage attendants in fleet maintenance to comply with hours of service requirements, which are rules that limit how long commercial vehicle drivers can drive and remain on duty while requiring minimum rest and offduty periods to help prevent fatigue related incidents and promote road safety. Diesel rail operators on the other hand are governed by the maximum and minimum maximum work hours and minimum rest requirements mandated by Transport Canada. It is important to note that the responsibility for managing hours of service and duty and rest period rule compliance rests with the employee themselves. In addition, the collective agreement states that employees who exceed 130 hours of work within a bi-weekly pay period are not eligible for further overtime unless there are no other qualified employees available. As part of our sample testing of overtime transactions, we did find both hours of service violations and instances where employees worked more than the 130 hours in a bi-weekly period. Relying on an individual employee to confirm that they're compliant with the hours of service and collective agreement rules increases the risk to the city that shifts or overtime are accepted by employees that could potentially lead to violations. Additionally, excessive overtime impacts the quality of work of an employee and can cause health and safety concerns. Well, we're on the next slide, so we can keep it there. The next finding is related to monitoring of overtime within bus operations and fleet maintenance. We did not see evidence of formal or ongoing monitoring activities. As mentioned earlier, overtime is currently being used by management as a mitigation to the existing staff shortages and to cover when employees are not available. This is especially the case in fleet maintenance where currently overtime is being used as a tool to address the backlog of maintenance required for the existing fleet. Within rail operations, there's currently informal monitoring being performed regarding overtime. Trends are reviewed in planning for upcoming quarterly bookings to move shifts around to mitigate where they tend to be short staff or to avoid duty and rest period rules violations. Without proactive monitoring, management cannot identify trends or issues that are resulting for the overtime being incurred. Furthermore, as indicated in the figure on this slide, showing a breakdown of budgets versus actuals incurred from 2021 to 2025, management is continuing year after year to inadequately budget for overtime across across the three branches. While we understand there are many factors complicating the budgeting process, there appears to be a lack of necessary changes to reflect the operating realities which impacts transparency and management's ability to effectively plan with its existing resources. Next slide, please. The next area is related to the significant reliance on manual processes and tools to support time reporting and administration. Bus and rail operations are fully integrated within Hastas where a majority of time administration and reporting activities are automated. The time administration and reporting processes within fleet maintenance on the other hand as mentioned earlier is primarily manual with paperbased signup sheets and time sheets and manual entries into SAP. Sever several challenges were noted due to the reliance on manual processes and the limited ability to leverage existing systems. For example, due to the manual nature of tracking of time worked, it is difficult to manage hours of service requirements and to ensure overall compliance. Management and the transit bookings and timekeeping unit are limited in their ability to identify any potential conflicts before overtime or additional work is awarded. We also learned that is acceptable for staff to sign up for the same shift of overtime at multiple garages. There's no visibility across garages because the process is manual. As a result, an individual can end up being awarded the overtime shift in multiple garages and will not be able to attend one of them. This further causes scheduling complications. Overall, reliance on manual time sheets and verification processes can lead to inefficiencies and errors. It can also make it challenging to identify potential instances of time fraud or time theft as there's no ability to leverage a system to generate reports and investigate anomalies. Furthermore, it can result in significant additional costs to the city. The last area is result is related to the use of booking clerks and the booking process for bus operators. The booking process for operators is an inherently complicated process due to the booking approach currently in place whereby operators book their shifts on a quarterly basis. To support operators in booking their schedules, OC Transpo has leveraged a group of bus operators to act as booking clerks. In alignment with the rules and procedures outlined in the collective agreement, there is a roster of about 20 to 25 bus operators assigned as booking clerks who are paid a booking clerk premium per hour while working the shift. A booking clerk can work in both their booking clerk capacity and a bus operator capacity in any given day. We understand that because of the rules in the collective agreement and historical practices related to booking clerks, they typically get paid more than they actually work. For example, a booking clerk could be scheduled for an 8-hour driving shift and later be offered to take on a booking clerk shift instead. As part of their booking clerk duties, they may only be required to work for four hours during that shift, but they are paid the full eight hours based on what they were originally scheduled for as a bus operator. In principle, having seasoned operators performing administrative work may not represent the best value for best value for money for the city and takes operators away from driving buses which are needed to support the bus network. Next slide, please. In summary, our review found that over time has become a significant and ongoing part of OC Transpose's operations largely due to persistent staffing shortages and the challenges of maintaining an aging fleet. Occasional overtime can can help meet short-term demands and is more coste effective or efficient in situations where there is unpredictability or seasonality to the work. However, reliance on overtime as a mechanism to manage staff shortages and regular operations is not sustainable in the long run. It often leads to higher costs, burnout, reduced productivity, quality issues, and increased employee turnover. Furthermore, the review identified that there is significant reliance on manual processes, which limits efficiency, increases the risk of error and misuse of overtime, and makes monitoring of overtime very difficult. Greater use of technology and system functionality would help improve decision-making, reduce administrative burden, and strengthen controls to further ensure prudent use of public funds. Chair, this concludes our presentation. We'd be happy to take any questions committee members have at this time. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. This is a very important audit. Maybe every audit's important, but this is quite the audit. Okay, this is questions just for the auditor general, just so we get it clear in our head. This is not for staff yet, right? So, Auditor General and Councelor Hill, >> um, this is really more a procedural question for you. Uh, would would it be a value to have comment from OC Transpo uh to perhaps clarify their position to these comments? >> So, we uh GM Lir is going to make a statement when we get to questions to staff. >> Okay. >> Councelor Brown. >> Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Auditor General Ria, thank you very much. Um, through your review, a little bit more of the behind-the-scenes context. How did the audit unfold? Was management productive when they were required to be? I'm reading this and I think there are some major concerns here and I think there'll be more questions to staff afterwards. Um, but could you provide a little bit more color about the audit and some of the things that you saw that maybe made it into the audit, but would be an opportune moment to provide some more background? Thank you for the question, counselor. Through you, chair. Um, as always, staff are very accommodating. They're very open and forthcoming with us, which obviously makes our work uh easier, but it's where we're able to actually come up with some of the best recommendations. You see, half of our report isn't truly about whether overtime was approved or if it was necessary. We clearly saw that there were more systemic issues with regards to just how our operations actually unfolding when it comes to booking and scheduling of overtime and and just the manual workarounds that we're seeing from even just ad time entry. you know, I I I think um you'll hear from the general manager that um if I may put it so bluntly, it's time to, you know, for us to be in the 21st century when it comes to this, you know, managing our uh managing our overtime and managing our our time entry. Um I looked to Ria to see if there was any other color that she'd like to add, but >> thank you, Natalie. um through the chair, I'll agree with Natalie, staff and management were very cooperative and we had no issues getting the information we need. They actually sat down every transaction with us and gave us the context and gave us, you know, we had back and forth. So, I would say there was no issues from that end. And with regards to the sample size, because we can't audit everything, but with regards to the sample size, do you believe it tracks generally across the service or do you think there might be an error? Because I'm if I'm looking at, you know, 23% of the entries that didn't have the appropriate authorizations like that would be a huge concern if this is going to be extrapolated across the service. >> So I I will add some color to that. We did not take a statistical sample. So you'd be in the hundreds at this point in order for us to be able to extrapolate this percentage to all overtime. That being said, when we start seeing systemic um issues, it doesn't matter the sample size. And most stat statistitians, statistitians will tell you the same thing. Um I my team knows it. Sometimes we'll have a larger sample size and we're halfway through and I say stop. There's no point at that point. once you start seeing significant issues, you know, we didn't just haphazardly fall on the worst case scenarios. So, um, and that being said is, you know, management was again very forthcoming about their limited ability to monitor these things and to really be able to, you know, be on top of them. >> And my last question, are you satisfied with the response from management for the lead time that it's going to take to transition to a more modern recordkeeping approach instead of the paperbased? seems like it's a very long time and I know things take a long time at the city but this seems a little ridiculous. >> Well, as previous vice chair, I know you know that when I have concerns about implementation timelines, I'm usually very vocal about it with management and usually with my updates. When you talk about system implementations, those things don't happen overnight. You need to make sure that you have the right system that's going to be able to meet your needs, whether that's Hastice or something else that will be for management to determine. uh then you need the processes around it to be able to support it if you want to make sure it's implemented properly. So, uh it's not a flip the switch type of situation, but obviously the sooner that we can remedy some of these things, the better. Uh some of these items, as you see, are linked to collective bargaining uh negotiations. You can't necessarily move those up. Um and those are obviously more complex in nature as well. So, uh considering the situation, yes, we're comfortable with the time frames. >> Well done. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, councelor Kr. >> Um, thank you very much. Thank you for this uh audit. Just uh when I was reading the documentation, it indicated that the reason that this was sort of triggered was because you had reports to the fraud and waste hotline. I believe multiple reports. Um, will anything be pursued through the fraud and waste or once you looked at it, it seemed to be more of a a culture issue that warranted a review and and what was the decision to do a review as opposed to a full-fledged audit? If you can just explain the process, how you decided that the review is the most appropriate tool. >> Thank you for the question. Um so when we receive reports through the fraud and waste hotline we take a look at them look at whether or not we have sufficient information to uh look into them. Uh unfortunately a lot of the times we are missing information. So we're not able to investigate them on the spot. So that's kind of the first reason why they weren't necessarily investigated at that time. Um that being said when we started seeing more systemic reports so we had received um uh reports from a number of departments uh that was the flag that perhaps maybe we wanted to take a look at it from a more holistic perspective. Um just to I guess provide a little bit of um uh clarity on the difference between a review and an audit. We do a lot of very similar procedures. It's just the level of assurance. So, well, Council Brown asked with regards to our sample size, a review will have us likely taking a smaller sample size and it will in a lot of cases have a much more narrow scope as well. Um, I say narrow scope. We had a very narrow scope, but obviously the issues that we found from a manual process perspective and a booking kind of caused that scope to widen a little bit for us to be able to understand the root causes of some of these issues. So, counselor, I hope that answers your question. Yeah, absolutely. And uh it leads to my next question which in this in this did you see an opportunity to put a broader audit uh other items on your short list for your work plan? >> We always think of new ideas every time we conduct an a review or an audit or an investigation. I'm not sure if Rick would like me to start listing some of those, but um as you can see, we have highlighted some concerns with regards to the CBA. Um I think there are definitely a lot of uh inefficiencies um that have occurred as a result of significant like many years of negotiations. Um that's not an easy thing for the city to course correct on, I would say. Um, but there are definitely some elements in there that have caused us to um cause caused us concerns, I guess, from an overall value for money for uh taxpayers with this review as well as with our previous uh OC transf planning and scheduling uh audit. Those ones definitely highlighted uh quite a few items linked to the CBAs that um are are costing the city quite a bit. >> Okay, thanks very much. And then I just had a a question. I know you mentioned when um about the opportunity to sign up for work at multiple garages. Is that like at the same you know you you obviously can't do all those shifts. So are people getting paid for work at multiple garages? Were there examples of that or it just meant that the shift would be abandoned? >> Chair through you. um it would just mean that the shift would be abandoned and then um obviously the supervisor is required to try to find another individual to fill that uh that shift. So it just causes additional scheduling complexities um and it would make it you know a lot more simplistic to resolve if this was electronically managed. >> Okay. And then in the report it talked about um DRPR violations and that when there's a change to the schedule to avoid one of these violations that the operator still gets paid for the time they were scheduled. Is that because that's in the CBA? >> Yes, that is correct. >> Okay. So, as as we mentioned in the report, um it's obviously much more advantageous for the city to be able to proactively identify these before even scheduling them. Obviously, it's great that some of them are being identified once scheduled, but before actually worked because, you know, we don't want the city to be in a liability issue. Um that being said, there's still a cost to the city that doesn't that didn't need to have been incurred. >> Okay. So, that's because of the CBA. So even though it's posing a danger for somebody to work those many hours in a row and could cause a risk to the city, they still if they if it's not caught, they get paid >> because the city scheduled them as such. >> Okay, thank you very much. I'll leave it at that. >> Thank you, Councelor Carr. Thank you, Councelor Kits, for allowing councelor Brockington to go ahead of you. Sorry, they're not for the AG. All right. I don't know if we're going to get there in time then. Okay. Councelor KZ. Thank you, Chair. Um, so it's clear we've reached a point where overtime um is compensating for deficiencies in in staffing and workforce planning. Did your office examine whether the city would um save money by filling those vacancies rather than continuing to rely on overtime? chair through you. Um obviously the review wasn't focused on on that. That being said, we are seeing such a high number um that as I had mentioned at the beginning, there's there's times where overtime is more cost effective. Uh if if you need for example a firefighter to work a couple extra hours uh you know once every couple of weeks, it's obviously cheaper to have that happen than it is to bring in an extra firefighter. In this case, we are seeing a lot of overtime. So, I I don't have to do the analysis to know that there are at least some instances where it would be much more costefficient to have extra staff. And I think Rick would also agree with that, especially in the uh fleet maintenance area. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sorry. Sorry. I'll just also add to that. Um, in some cases, yes, hiring additional staff would the impact of that would be um, immediately seen. But I think it's also important to not uh, note that in some areas that are facing staff shortages, that impact of hiring additional staff isn't seen until like maybe a year or two or four years later. For example, you know, with um, rail operators, it takes them two years to train them. So hiring those additional staff, you're not actually going to get that impact until they're fully trained and actually be able to operate um the electric trail rail. I just want to add to that. Thanks. >> Okay. Thanks very much. Yeah, it's clear that over time has become the default, not the exception. So thank you. >> Thank you, Councelor Kavanagh. Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much for the report. Um it just seems odd that we're you know that paper was still the way of uh keeping track of these uh of this overtime and was this in your discoveries was this that there was you know paper loginins on different places because of the different um uh places of work for the mechanics. >> I will start off with that RA if you'd like to add. Um I think at least from a um kind of a branch perspective there has been slow transition to implement hastess for these various elements but I looked to Ria if she saw anything else throughout the review. Um do you the chair? I would say that it really came like the manual nature really came to play in within fleet maintenance where everything is paperbased. So it it took quite a bit of time to understand and uncover the rationale or who was offered the overtime or why was the overtime offered. I guess with bus and rail because there is implementation within hastice that process was a little bit easier but there is still a lot of manual um time administration and time reporting practices still in place. >> Thank you. Um this is um it as we know there's been a a shortage for quite a while of of workers uh mechanics and and drivers and so it and your your audit was just in this past year is it >> uh the review covered roughly a 2-year period. >> Okay. So I mean this this has been building up so it it's been in increasing. Is that the case? >> That is correct. Now, obviously, our review didn't cover 2026, but I I think you've heard uh general manager Liry speak um earlier on this year about a need to reduce overtime because it was continuing and obviously as we had mentioned, there's incentives being provided such as double time pay in order to try to get some of the backlog of work uh through. >> Okay. Um and the the automated system, this is something that's used on other municipalities, other um transit systems. >> I could definitely state through you, chair, that yes, other municipalities are using electronic mechanisms. Uh I can't speak to which um system they're using. Bria, do you have something to add? >> No, nothing to add. >> Okay. No, I just wondered what the comparison was and if there was issue you know like if this is something systemic here or if it's uh you know a problem you know systemwide across other transit systems um in terms of using a paper versus uh an automated system. So but obviously there as has been mentioned that would require training as well. So, so there will be a a delay in getting people trained up. >> Um, I think that question would be best answered to management, but yes, obviously once you have a new system, you're going to have to train individuals on how to use it and how to obviously uh approve, manage, enter, all of those things. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much for this audit. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. I'm going to go to GM Larry for your statement and then first questions are going to go to Councelor Brockington because he has to leave. Thank you very much uh through chair and good morning bonjour. But I'd like to begin uh by thanking the auditor general and her team for the important work on this report. We appreciate the findings, agree with the recommendations and recognize the importance of strengthening our overtime I'm excuse me strengthening how overtime is managed and monitored at OC Transpo. The findings reinforce work already in progress through our customer first action plan to improve service reliability, stabilize our workforce, and ensure the long-term financial sustainability of OC Transpo. When I joined OC Transpo, I was tasked by the city manager with addressing the reliability of our transit service, including the challenges associated with staffing levels, fleet availability, and our reliance on overtime. These issues have been a priority from the outset and are central to the 10 actions we're advancing through our customer first action plan. I have said be this before an organization cannot rely on overtime to deliver its regular service. However, it is important to recognize that overtime is often a symptom of broader operational challenges rather than an underlying problem, which in the case of OC Transpo is the need to rebuild the workforce capacity, renew our bus fleet, and improve operational efficiency. We're now hiring the right number of people for the service that we're committed to delivering. This is all part of building a sustainable workforce. These challenges are not unique to Ottawa. Transit agencies across North America have faced significant workforce and operational pressures. In recent years, the pandemic placed considerable strain on recruitment and staffing across the transit industry, particularly in specialized trades such as licensed mechanics where shortages continue today. At OC Transpo, these pressures have been compounded by an aging bus fleet and delays in the delivery of our new fleet of electric buses. Our maintenance teams have worked very hard to keep our older buses in service longer than originally anticipated, resulting in increased maintenance that required more overtime expenditure. And as you can imagine, it's very difficult keeping old buses in service. We are now in a period of transformation and the work underway is intended to address these underlying pressures. As we have presented to transit committee, reliable service depends on three things. A dependable fleet, realistic schedules, and a sustainable workforce. Our customer first action plan addresses all three as each is an independency of the other. With the introduction of the new electric and articulated buses, we are replacing older vehicles that require more frequent maintenance. Uh, excuse me. As our aging fleet is replaced with new vehicles, we are seeing reduced maintenance pressures and a corresponding reduction in the need for overtime. We're seeing progress in the right direction. Since the peak of uh last winter, there's been a 48% decrease in vehicle issues reported while in service. There's also been a reduction in overtime because of our latest classes of bus operators and we're assessing the 2027 budget. I'd let you know that for the month of October, there was a 2500 hour reduction in overtime for bus operators because of the hiring. We're also making improvements to our bus schedules to better reflect actual operating conditions. By adjusting routes and schedules, we're making more effective use of our available operators, reducing the need for overtime to deliver regularly scheduled service, and provide more reliable experience for our customers. At the same time, we continue to recruit bus operators, rail operators, mechanics, garage attendants, and garage supervisors. We're also expanding our mechanic apprenticeship program to increase its capacity, helping to build a sustainable workforce and reduce our reliance on overtime over the longer term. These are just a few these are just some of the steps that we're taking to rightsize the organization and staff our frontline positions. These are not changes that happen overnight. Rebuilding workforce capacity, renewing our fleet, and improving operational efficiency all take time. However, these fundamental changes underway these fundamental changes are underway to address the causes of overtime rather than simply managing the symptoms. The auditor general report also identifies important opportunities to strengthen our internal controls and accountability. We recognize that even when overtime is operationally necessary, it must be appropriately approved, documented, and monitored. improvements uh to our time administration processes, including the introduction of enhanced scheduling technology, stronger supervisory approvals, and more proactive monitoring of overtime expenditures, I'd let you know, are underway. These measures will improve consistency, transparency, and financial oversight across our operations. As the auditor's review also indicated, we have accepted all 13 recommendations. Some recommendations will need to be addressed through collective bargaining process, but we're moving forward with all the improvements that we have the authority to implement. Ultimately, we're moving away from relying on overtime for regularly scheduled for regular service towards an operation that has the right number of employees, reliable vehicles, and schedules that reflect the service that we need to deliver. That is what the customer first action plan is designed to achieve. And this audit reinforces the importance of the work already underway. We will continue to provide updates to committee and council on our progress, including the measures that we are implementing to strengthen finite financial oversight and reduce overtime requirements. I'd once again like to uh thank the auditor general and her team for their review and recommendations. We welcome this assessment and remain committed to making the improvements necessary to deliver reliable, sustainable, and accountable transit service for our customers in this city. Thank you, Merci. >> Thank you, Councelor Broington. >> Thank you, Madam Chair and colleagues, and thank you um in particular to you, Mr. Liry, for providing us with the context of the challenges that you're faced with managing OC Transit. I think it's important for us to hear and your commitment to improving going forward. And I think one thing I wrote down that I appreciate is your role in what you say, managing and monitoring overtime, which is exactly the oversight that management needs. So, thank you. I just wanted to say that I support overtime. Overtime is uh a tool that management have. It's it provides flexibility. there are many cases when it's needed and I certainly don't oppose overtime. It's just how it's managed and making sure it's done in a a modern efficient manner. So I just wanted to state that the questions I had regarding uh regarding safety when an operator drives 130 hours in a two week period how are they still physically and mentally alert to continue driving? And if it's a self-regulated or self-monitored overtime process, like does this set alarm bells off for you? How is an operator or even a mechanic who's using dangerous heavy equipment um still able to perform safely? uh through the chair. You know what it does for me is it I'm first I'll say that I'm very appreciative of the workforce that's committed to keeping the service running. You know we in management need to do a little bit better when it comes to providing the workforce necessary to provide the job. I'd tell you in the short run working long many hours you know the adrenaline keeps people going but when I've been going out across the organization and I talk about work life balance and the importance of that right thanking them for what they've done but now with the hiring coming in place the reduction in overtime our investment in people um the the workforce is appreciative of that I'd let you know have I worried I haven't had any worries about safety at at this juncture but I knew that we had to take these actions to move forward to ensure If I the only other profession I'm aware of um you know pilots have a requirement you know rest periods they can't work excessive amounts of time without flying again. Um so where do you go from here with respect to ensuring that that cap is um enforced that um the amount of time that certain operators or even nonoperators um this the I guess the overtime is better spread out and we don't have employees working such excessive amounts of of time to begin with. um through the chair. I I really believe that the actions taking place in the customer first action plan with the new vehicles coming in, working on the schedules, a lot of this aligns to what the AG has has openly stated, you know, and the staffing levels coming in. We're going to make a real big difference in that once we get a little bit uh I'm going to say a little bit more control over the initial hiring. That's why I was really excited to see the first month drop 2500 hours. Now the team can really focus on the on the specifics of uh what's going on. There's a a statement in our industry that when things get done in overtime, things only get done in overtime. And I want to make sure that that doesn't happen at OC Transpo. Thank you. And my last question is for our city manager. The audits uncover um you know certain behaviors or actions that need to be modernized, need to be improved. Um, sometimes we would never know uh this is happening unless an audit was actually performed. So my question to you is, and if you need some time to think about this, I'd happy to take an answer when it comes to council, but how do we ensure that modernization is happening across the city where audits aren't taking place, where we don't have to rely on an audit to identify inefficiencies that may be happening? I'll certainly take some of that now. Um, and actually I will turn to Rick because um, I think what's important here is there is a system change. There's technology that's going to be introduced that's going to help significantly in terms of modernizing how uh, we're leveraging the time system at transit and that work is well underway. Um, and I do appreciate the auditor general's comments with respect to the time that it takes to go through a modernization project. It is something that does not happen overnight. It takes uh an incredible uh amount of a team to do the heavy lifting in terms of, you know, all of the work that goes behind uh the testing um the system requirements, right? as you go through that entire process. So, um, happy if if Rick wants to provide some further comments in terms of what's happening at transit and and happy to have a conversation with you offline with respect to modernization as well. >> The chair, I'll just to support what the city manager has said. You know, OC Transpo is an wonderful organization with a lot of initiatives underway. A lot of what I'm doing is just pulling all the pieces together and putting it under an action plan and making sure that you're better educated on on the steps we're taking uh to address issues just as the AG is bringing to us. >> Thank you very much, Councelor Hill. >> Uh thank you, Chair. Uh thank you very much to the auditor general for bringing this forward and thank you um general manager Liry for your your comments. Um I I am agnostic to the system that you use to manage this. I don't care if you use paper and I don't care if you use a modernized computer system. Uh as long as functionally what is happening is the most efficient outcome in order to ensure safety, reliability and uh as much as possible affordability for the transit system. I also recognize like my colleague mentioned the importance of overtime in order to achieve the operational outcomes that you have been tasked to perform for the city. If there is a time and space and need for overtime, then do it. But I recognize that there is a perspective here that there could be some abuse to that and there could be perspective or perception of abuse to that and that's the issue we need to address. What I don't want to see is a knee-jerk reaction that causes any type of reduction in service or reliability to OC Transpo in order to ensure compliance on overtime. So, I just want to hear a confirmation that your focus, customer first focus remains customer first focus. Where you need some overtime, you're going to do some overtime. where you need to improve the controls internally in order to make sure that that stuff is uh being managed appropriately. It's being managed appropriately, but at no time we're going to be suffering in terms of the outcomes that we need in order for transit riders to get the best service from OC Transport. >> Through the chair, I can assure you councelor that I have all the support necessary that this table and uh through the the committee and council to to do exactly what you've asked for. We're doing it in a taking a managed approach though. We want to do it responsibly and a lot of it is for educating the the organization as well and better ways of doing things. But it is critical for me to become more effective and more efficient in the way we do business. That's where the savings will take place that can be reinvested in the organization. >> I was disappointed to see that the budgeting allocations over the last several years under represented the overtime requirements. I just want to confirm that when we see the 2027 budget from OC Transpo that you're confident that you're going to both take into account the overtime requirements and also that you're going to be focused on the the new transitions and whatever that means for you, but that there won't be an under representation of the budget requirement for OC Transpo as it pertains to overtime >> through the chair. Again, I can assure you that that's the intent that we're taking during this budgeteering process. have staff working on it today and we've been meeting almost daily on this now regarding adjusting. We know that we've gone over our overtime budget line items and we're offset and you'll see at the during the budget process where the many times we're offsetting overtime the expenditure of overtime to bring in bodies. So we're working closely on that. I haven't heard comment today from our union representation, but I do want to ask you from a collective bargaining arrangement perspective. Um I'm assuming that there is a coordinated joint engagement in order to address the underlying issues of overtime as it pertains to operations but also as it pertains to uh the obligations for the city in the collective collective bargain arrangement and are there any issues that need to be modernized or changed in upcoming CBAs in order to better address the overtime piece >> through the chair. I'd tell you uh councelor that uh every step of the way we consult with our uh our partners in in labor uh making sure they're aware of what we're doing and the direction that we're going in. We will have to sit down in about 18 months of negotiations and have discussions on how the booking process will change right but it'll be changing through technology uh would be the recommendation as we go forward. >> Uh thank you very much. Uh my final comment would be please hold people accountable where there have been issues uh criminal fraudulent but do not do anything that undermines the need for us to provide the top-notch service to our OC transport customers. Thank you very much. >> Thank you uh Councelor Kavanagh. >> Thank you chair and um thank you for your statement. Really appreciate it. Um Rick, um I I realize first of all that um there's been a lot of pressure when when I think of the complaints we get about service over the past winter and um the missed buses, etc. Um I can I can imagine the pressure of of trying to get buses out there and to get buses fixed and um and I can see that this has amounted to a lot of overtime because we didn't have enough drivers. We didn't have enough mechanics. And I just wanted to know how we're we're coming through this. I think your your statement um uh talks about that, but um are are we ready to get to the other side and um and have a system where overtime is of course necessary? Everyone gets it that there's times when overtime is necessary, but uh that it's not um uh the the answer to everything. um through the chair as well. Um you're absolutely correct in in the statement. I believe we're coming out of it. I I know we're coming out of it. We're looking very well. I'd let you know that in a in September, we we sent it out to to council. The number of concerns by customers dropped dramatically regarding the reliability of the the service, the no-shows, and the late vehicles, 40 to 70% in many cases. So, the customers are seeing it. We've we've changed 30 schedules. would accounted for 50% of our ridership. We have 20 more schedules coming up later on this year before the end of the year that we're changing to make our schedules more reliable and the staffing numbers you know have you know with last month I went to two classes 108 operators all right so the all of a sudden we starting to see the staffing come in right to help us to provide that service be more reliable and what I was thrilled with is reducing 2500 hours of of overtime so yes we're definitely and I might might add that 200 of the 354 new electric buses are now here. So, the buses we're putting on the road are more reliable. And that's why the interdependencies are so important for me, right, to mention them because it's no one item that addresses overtime. It's everything together and we're really heading in the right direction. >> Thank you. Can you speak to um the uh the switching over to a more automated system versus what um was a paper system before and how that's going to transition um and how that'll make a difference? Yes, true the chair. Um, you know, the the way we we do some of our, uh, work um, you know, it's very paper based as has been identified, but we do know in the industry that many of us have modernized that through automation like everything else. So, everything would be in a computer. Everything identifies seniority for you. You know, you have to make adjustments based on deviating from seniority. A lot of what staff have done to date is, you know, when you're short, you do what you do you have to do to keep buses on the road, for instance. Um so you're going to see a big difference in looking be having to look at the data uh having the ability to analyze the way we manage service a lot differently as we're doing with the schedules for instance you know as we change that to maximize the use of uh uh staff. So it's kind of exciting. It's still a few years away still with negotiations with the union but it'll make a big difference on uh you know transparency and keeping us accountable for what for what uh the way we manage. Thank you. And I appreciate the auditor general's findings because my my top concern was was safety and health of of the operators first of all, but also of uh of of the of those who are on buses. I mean, we want uh a healthy workforce and we want to make sure that they do have um a balance of you know, life work balance. So um I hope to see that u coming forward as a priority. Thank you very much. I think it's important if I may jump in just to thank the union president as well, you know, for the work that he's been doing working with us, you know, the collaboration. It couldn't have happened without uh his participation. So, thank you, Noah. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Councelor Kits. >> Thank you, Chair. Um yeah, given given that we're talking about operating heavy machinery, I think when we do get into that over 130 hour territory, um it is a a safety concern as some of my colleagues have mentioned, but I think uh so something that we need to take seriously, but I think uh that's been covered off. I did like councelor Brockington's question about not always relying on audit reports to expose these things. I find sometimes, you know, these reports land on our desks and it seems unbelievable um that some of these processes are so archaic. So, I would encourage, you know, the city manager and relevant GMs to to do a proactive deep dive into um how we could be running things more efficiently. The only question I have is probably for Sirill just about oversight. Um you know, it sounds like we're trending in the right direction in terms of reducing our overtime. um that would be something that would show up in the quarterly reports to Finco. >> Yes, sir. Chair, that would be correct. In addition to the quarterly reports, every month my finance team distributes finance reports to every GM and every department, director, manager, etc. And we also do that at the compensation level from broken down by salary and overtime. So those reports are distributed on a regular basis. >> Okay. So that's a place where counselors could keep an eye on sort of the direction we're going in. Okay. Thank you very much. Keler Carr. >> Yeah, thanks very much. Um, when I read the audit report, I was struck by the fact that it um it said uh with respect to the industrywide mechanic shortage that the area is currently short 57 licensed staff. I don't know what what point in time that was written, but we had a update at transit committee in September was very enthusiastically delivered. talked about nine mechanics and 11 garage tenants graduating in 2026. Additional mechanics and garage attendants are in training. But, you know, and I I left that meeting feeling hopeful, but when I look at those numbers compared to 57 that was identified in this report, like how far off the mark are we in terms of staffing of mechanics presently? And as well um you know it also spoke to shortage of bus operators and uh I think it was electric rail operators or rail operators. How like what does that look like right now >> through the chair the um right now when you look at bus operators we we're plentiful rail operators on the electric side we have pl we have plenty um the diesel side we have a couple of classes that were necessary to to get the line four back to where we'd like it to be. Uh and on the mechanics, it's going to take a couple of years, right? Meeting with Algangquin College and trying to set up and re rebaseline this uh apprenticeship program with them. It's going to take uh three years thereabouts, right, to get to a point where we, you know, are less reliant on overtime for mechanics than uh we are today. You know, been had another meeting with the frontline staff, the mechanics the other day. I thank them for the work they're doing. There's a lot going on in the apprenticeship program right now to as we move forward, but we want to set ourselves up positive for the future and uh that's where we're starting today. >> Okay. And as part of the challenge with these the mechanics, it's not only the certification that what is that the 310 that they require, but is it the the hours of work as well? Like most of the buses are on the road during the day, so it's it's evenings, weekends, like is it what are the biggest factors? Uh right now, you know, we have about a 23 24% spear ratio. So, we're looking real good to have vehicles for during the day. As far as I what I look at, we still have some of the older vehicles that we have to phase out as we get the other 150 electrics in, which is very important. But, you know, we're seeing a better reliability when we're focusing on preventive maintenance with the maintenance staff. There is still overtime that's happening though. We we're a 247 operation, so there is the requirement to have people work nights and weekends. I I talk to them all the time about that. You know, we're working with the union and and the frontline employees to to see how we can make their jobs better. We're right now we're at the process of making sure we have more people trained in more of the areas that are necessary. We have a little limited in breaks for instance. We're making sure we have more people in brakes, diagnostic, more people in diagnostic. We're just modernizing the system to make more people available to do uh more things as we move forward and we bring these apprentice in. We are short. >> Yeah. No, understood. Thank you very much. And then in terms of um management of overtime uh not just in response to this report but overall I know that you had previously indicated when you started within the first few months you you you spoke about needing to get the overtime kind of under control. So when you compare to other transit sent like transit services and like overtime is expected as one of my colleagues mentioned like you know it it is that kind of an operation but what what's an ideal uh like like a comparable of percentage of overtime that we should be at um compared to the rest of our operations. >> Uh I'm going to be honest through to I'm going to be honest with the council I'm working on that now to make that determination. I don't have it. were a little tougher shape when it came to some of the staffing levels and the amount of overtime. You heard the AG talk about double time. They you they had to do what they had to do to get people to come in and do the work that the end of the year this that'll be gone. You know, as we bring more people in. So, you know, we're working to find out what that optimum sweet spot is. Right now, there are three variables primarily. I use the operators for example. In the booking period, they provide overtime. We want to minimize that to the greatest extent because I believe having people on straight time is a better way of providing the business. Then there's the special events and we understand special events and that's where you want to have the sweet spot and what you where your necessary overtime is and then there's those who you know the late coming in sick someone has a family emergency isn't there. So we really want to in those three categories make the determination of what the optimum amount is based on the events in the city for instance and you know so there's a lot of work to underway. It's going to take a year or two but we're looking to refine that and optimize it. >> You're sticking around for that. Thank you very much for answering my questions. >> Okay, thank you very much everybody. I don't think I cannot say this but coming from Canada's largest tech park, I guess I could not believe what was in this audit. I I mean I'm not talking about now. I'm talking 10 years ago there were apps on people's phones for restaurants where servers all over this city would just quickly click on an app to get their shift and it would be approved or denied. Like this technology has been around forever. I cannot believe that we at the city of Ottawa OC Transport would still have paper anything. Like I just to me it blows me away. And this isn't about you, Rick. This is about like 10 years ago. How did we actually get here that we're still using paper? I can't believe it. Um and it's it's not just this. It's all over the city. I hear about different reports that are still people are writing on a piece of paper the chlorine level at a pool that somebody looks at 3 days later when this is like a level that has to be measured. Anyway, I can't not say this coming from Canada's largest tech park in Canada North. We have the technology, you know, as they said, $6 million man, you know, we can build them or whatever it was. I can't remember that show that well now. But I'm not kidding you. This we can't have this. And if this is one audit from this department, this has to be looked at across the whole city. We can't rely on the auditor general to look at every department of the city for what's being done on paper. So that's my lecture for the day and then I will move to the fact that we just have to approve this recommendation. And it says that the audit committee receive the review report and recommend that council consider and approve the recommendations. Is that carried? >> Carried. >> Carried. All right. Next one. 5.4. We're going to do this one and then we'll have a 10-minute break. Uh audit of curbside garbage collection. Thank you, chair. I'll just take a moment for my uh team to change over. Thank you, Natalie. Solid Waste Services is responsible for managing Ottawa's residential solid waste system. Under the solid waste services bylaw, the city currently provides bi-weekly curbside garbage collection to approximately 315,000 addresses across Ottawa. The program has undergone significant change in recent years. In 2024, council approved the solid waste master plan, establishing a long-term strategy to reduce reliance on landfill disposal and increased waste diversion. A key initiative under the master plan was the reduction of the curbside garbage limit from six items to three items per each collection. As of March 2026, curbside garbage collection is delivered through a hybrid service model consisting of three geographic collection zones established by the city. One central zone is serviced by the city's in-house collection team and the two remaining zones are serviced through a vendor contracted collection team. Next slide, please. The objective of this audit was to assess whether the city has designed and implemented processes to manage curbside garbage collection and to achieve value for money. The audit covered curbside garbage collection activities from the period of January 1st, 2025 to May 31st, 2026. It included the evaluation of collection activities performed by both the external contractor and the in-house team. monitoring, inspection, and enforcement processes to promote resident conformance with collection and diversion requirements and budgeting, cost control, and resource management processes to supporting curbside garbage collection. Next slide, please. Now, on to the key findings of the audit. The first finding relates to the operational guidance in place for collectors and inspectors. The city has established a clear regulatory foundation through the solid waste services bylaw. The bylaw defines collectible versus non-colctible garbage and the responsibilities of residents for putting out garbage. Collectors must apply these requirements and decide whether to collect items placed at the curb or leave them at the curb and issue a courtesy tag to residents when garbage does not meet collection requirements. The audit found that the operational guidance provided to collectors, including the collection operation procedure manual, is currently not fully aligned with the bylaw. An example of this misalignment includes appliances, which the bylaw identifies as non-colctible, but the collector manual treats as a waste incident, which requires the collector to contact their supervisor to confirm the required action. These differences increase the risk that collectors may interpret and apply collection requirements inconsistently, resulting in variations in collection practices. With regards to training, new collectors receive formal training, but this training provides limited instruction on the bylaw's collectibility requirements. Uh, thus with the previously noted issues of the collector manual, it is therefore noted that collectors lack a single consolidated source that is consistent with the bylaw. The impact of this lack of guidance and instruction was evident in our audit testing where collectors were discreetly monitored by audit staff across all three collection zones during May and June 2026. Of the 21 test cases observed, it was noted that collectors took appropriate action in only two instances. In the other 19 cases, collectors either collected ineligible garbage left at the curb or did not issue a courtesy tag eggs as required. Examples include several instances where the three item limit was exceeded and all garbage was picked up, as well as paint cans that were collected despite not being eligible. When guidance is outdated, inconsistent or unclear, this can result in inconsistent curbside collection decisions, reducing the effectiveness of the city's waste diversions efforts. Next slide, please. The second finding relates to monitoring of collector compliance. The city has established roles for monitoring compliance with route and supervisors overseeing collectors and city inspectors monitoring garbage collection as a whole and exercising enforcement authority when required. The audit found that in practice monitoring is largely reactive and complaintdriven. The audit did not identify evidence of a structured approach such as route inspectors conducted uh at defined frequencies, documentation requirements, or established follow-up procedures. This differs from practices in other municipalities such as Calgary where we understand that structured route inspections and are used to monitor collector adherence with bylaw requirements and contractual obligations with the contractor. Uh we also found gaps in the recording of courtesy tags. Collectors document handwritten tags in a daily log which is then entered into the city's service request database. But there is no for formal process at this time to ensure that all tags are entered. During our audit observations of collectors executing their role, auditors identified a total of three courtesy tags being issued. However, from our review of the service request database, it was noted that only one of these observed courtesy tags that were actually recorded in the database. Finally, the audit noted that technology is not applied consistently. The contractor has his garbage trucks equipped with truck mounted cameras while city operated vehicles do not. The city has been per periodically able to leverage camera footage on contractor assigned routes when required to resolve resident complaints. However, this footage is used when needed rather than used to proactively monitor compliance with collection guidelines. Overall, without a structured and proactive approach, management has limited assurance that collection and diversion requirements are being applied consistently across collection zones. Next slide, please. The next finding relates to the use of escalation and enforcement authorities. The bylaw establishes a framework for inspection and escalation, granting inspectors the authority to inspect waste on residential properties, issue compliance orders, and take escalation action through offense notices. On contractor compliance, the curbside collection contract allows the city to lev to levy liquidated damages of $282 per incident for certain failures such as collecting garbage above the three item limit without pre-authorization and the insufficient use of cary tags. Since January 1st, 2025, the audit identified that the city has levied uh liquidated damages only once in the amount of $282 for the failure to use courtesy tags. As noted in our first finding, our testing identified numerous instances of non-compliance that could have been subject to penalties. With the absence of a proactive process to identify and subsequently exercise the contractual escalation provisions available to the city, there is a risk that non-compliant practices may persist and that the contractor may be may not sufficiently be incentivized to comply with bylaw requirements. Next slide, please. As the previous slide discussed contractor compliance with collection requirements, we also identified issue with resident compliance with collection requirements. While the city prefers to employ an educational approach towards compliance, the current version of the inspector manual sets out a progressive approach using notices of personal visit, notices of violation, and provincial offenses notices. However, even though these enforcement mechanisms are available to inspectors, the criteria and thresholds for these actions are not standardized or documented at this time, and it is not clear when each of these enforcement tools should be used. While the direction from council for a focus on education at this time remains reasonable, the audit found that data on repeat non-compliance by individual households is generally not monitored or analyzed to identify trends or support program improvements for the period of January 1st, 2025 to May 27th, 2026. Management data reviewed identified that 9,483 addresses received courtesy tags more than five times for non-compliance with the bylaw of which over 1900 were tagged for exceeding the three item limit. This information has not been used to trigger any targeted inspector action such as additional targeted education. While this represents a relatively small proportion of the approximately 315,000 addresses served, repeated not tagging uh suggests that courtesy tags alone may not be effective in influencing behavior for some residents. Without focus follow-up measures such as notices to provide more targeted education, recurring non-compliance issues may continue and opportunities to opportunities to reinforce collection requirements and improve resident awareness may be missed. Next slide, please. The next finding relates to the financial management and budgeting practices related to the operations of curbside garbage collection. Um, solid waste services repairs annual budgets with the assistance of the financial services unit for the city uh city council's approval. However, uh the audit found some potential concerns with budgets not being developed based on an analysis of the underlying factors that affect collection costs for the 2025 budget. Management used the 2024 budget as a baseline and adjusted line items for expected pressures such as inflation. This is not a preferred approach as developing budgets without a detailed analysis of the underlying factors increases the risks that budget estimates will not accurately reflect operational requirements. This was evident in the results as a um in the results as the garbage collection branch ended 2025 with a surplus representing more than 10% of the initial budget approved by council. We do want to recognize the improvement made in 2026. Due to the new curbside collection contract, management developed the budget based on the major components of the cost to deliver curbside garbage collection, including permanent staff salaries, fleet costs, and the new vendor contract rather than simply adjusting prior year figures. However, opportunities remain to continue this approach by reviewing key cost drivers such as tonnages collected and the use of landfills. This is particularly important as residents are charged an annual solid waste fee on their property tax bill and an accurate budget provides greater comfort that the ratebased fee is representative of the true cost to provide the service. Next slide please. In summary, the audit found that the city has established a comprehensive framework for curbside garbage collection through the bylaw and has implemented significant operational changes to support waste reduction and diversion objectives. While these efforts demonstrate the city's commitment to improving waste management, the audit identified opportunities to strengthen governance, administration, oversight, and performance management of curbside collections. The audit made eight recommendations and management agreed to them all. This concludes our presentation. We would be happy to take any questions committee members may have related to this audit. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, questions for the auditor general. Councelor Kavanaaugh. >> Yep. Thank you. Thank you very much for for this audit. Um, I'm probably going to ask most of my questions to to uh to the management, but uh um I just wanted to know um uh in terms of putting cameras on the vehicles, it just seems um I I I would never have thought of that that that was necessary and um and the fact that there are people that are or households rather that are being uh tagged five times that that that was very interesting. Um it looks like education is the way to go like that there's just not enough education out there. Um is that I mean that that seems to be the conclusion. chair through you. I think um and I think staff would support this as well is they're they're seeing a lot of positive um change as a result of uh the additional education that's gone out with the courtesy tag since the uh change to the three item limit. Um at least the statistics that we're seeing is that is definitely the case and uh even my team would say, "Oh, I didn't know I could do that, you know, as a result of getting a courtesy tag." So that you know that education is really important. I think what we're flagging is that there may be some individuals that either aren't understanding what the education is or might need something a little stronger. Again, we're not talking fines. We're talking about a different form of education. Uh Aul mentioned notices of personal visits and that's where an inspector can, you know, go to your door and explain that, you know, you violated the bylaw and and and you know, here are the reasons for it. I think the, you know, that type of additional education might be helpful in some of the more uh repetitive uh circumstances, but obviously our our report leaves it to management to determine uh through obviously discussion with council uh what those next steps might look like. >> Was this just on the contents of the like what type of garbage they put out? Like they put out a washing machine and they shouldn't have or something like that. >> So, it's a mix. It's whether or not they're putting out items that they're not supposed to. Um at made an example of one of our test cases. Uh I'm going to throw Joanne under the bus here. She put out a couple of paint cans that did have paint left in it with obviously the expectations that they wouldn't be picked up and they were picked up. So that is an example. And yes, the exceeding the three bag limit, sorry, the three item limit is also one of the recurring issues. as we mentioned, roughly 2,000 um households. Uh that has been a repetitive item. >> Thank you. One of the things that keeps coming back to our office is the size of the the garbage can, the the 140 liter limit, and um that that was plaguing our office because people had bigger containers and were not aware that that was a problem because they had them for a long time. Did that come up at all with your with the audit? >> Uh, from our observations, no, that wasn't necessarily the issue. Um, I mean, we definitely saw instances where residents were stacking their garbage cans as high as they could. Um, generally speaking, the contractors were still taking them from the collectors were still taking them from that perspective. I don't think that's the largest issue that we're seeing. um as management has reported historically uh over the past uh year or so um and you see in our audit that the tonnage going to the landfill is decreasing significantly. So that's obviously a very positive sign from a waste diversion perspective and the recommendations are report are really just trying to continue to help staff um meet those objectives. >> Okay. Thank you very much, >> Vice Chair Hubley. >> Thank you uh Chair. Um couple of questions. Great audit, by the way. Thank you for this. Um, your example of people piling garbage up above the can. I think there's a sticker for that, that you're not allowed to have a bag come over the top of the can. So, um, I think they've already thought of that one. My question is, uh, did we look at the amount of time that the drivers are spending? Like you're talking about the inspectors, but the drivers are writing these stickers, and you know, you can go down a street and almost every house will have a sticker. So that's got to be affecting uh the productivity like how long it takes to get through the root and that which is a cost to the task. >> Chair through you. Um we didn't look at time per se as whether or not this was taking them any longer. That wasn't a flag that came from staff that productivity was decreasing in any way. Um it was actually a factor that we took into consideration into our audit when we start looking at what do we want to look at? What types of recommendations could we see coming out of this report? Even in our planning discussions um you know we had some subject matter experts that we were leveraging throughout this and like our direction was clear was they have I'm looking to a tool but it's something like 18 seconds at each household. So you know whatever recommendation we want to suggest needs to be something that's efficient. Um I mean we could continue to make even more recommendations like maybe a courtesy tag needs to be like an electronic thing so it it's nice and quick and simple for them. Um but again we try to stay within what's actually cost effective. Um so we're not we we didn't flag any issues of additional uh inefficiencies as a result of doing that. Um but I do think that the number of tagging is going down in the sense of people are getting the message from the previous tags that were issued. We're just seeing some as we mentioned repetitive households. Tul was there anything you'd like to add to that? >> Um nothing additional. Well, I I think yeah, it was something that wasn't necessarily raised by management as Natalie mentioned. Um, we understand that they are doing a review of the three item limit and curbside collection in 2027. So, we'll defer to management on for their comments on that, but I believe that was to be uh covered by them at that time. >> Look forward to hearing what they say. Uh, the other question to that is you you referenced stuff like paint cans and that that weren't supposed to be in there. Did we look at all at how much stuff that's going from into the recycling program like the blue or the black or the green that is then being taken out and sent to landfill? >> Chair, unfortunately, we didn't because obviously recycling was transferred over to the province. That was something that was out of scope for us. But that being said, it's a it's a very valid point, counselor, and unfortunately not something that I have the information on. management might be able to enlighten at least uh what that looked like before the transfer in January, but unfortunately we can't speak to it. >> Okay, I'll I'll save that question for staff. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. And questions for staff. Councelor Kavanagh. >> Thank you, Chair. Well, I want to start by saying a big thank you to the whole waste management uh system for all their work during the flood. This was an extraordinary situation where people were overwhelmed with with a catastrophe that uh meant that their entire contents of their basement were were garbage. and um you stepped up and I had many many compliments on the fact that it wasn't just a weekly collection but that uh it was uh you went out of your way uh to uh make sure that people didn't have piles and piles of of of material. And of course, I'm going way off the the audit, but I had to say it because this is an opportunity to say thank you publicly. Um because I received many, many compliments on the fact that they didn't have to worry um because it was pretty bad um to have smelly, awful stuff piled up um on your front lawn. and um it was taken away and uh it was done efficiently and and uh in some cases it's still continuing which is just tells you the extent of the damage. So that's where I'm starting off from. Thank you. Um back to the audit. Um um I app I appreciate it and I just wanted to know um in terms of monitoring this um what can we do in terms of counselor's office too to educate people because clearly um you know in some cases maybe people are um are are ignoring the you know the standards and and um we have to deal with that but uh I think the vast majority of people just don't know what can be put out and what can't and I'm still dealing with it and those calls come to our office and we're pretty overloaded. So, how can we help out on that? >> Thank you for the question. I just want to acknowledge and thank the auditor and the team for the comprehensive audit. Uh we appreciate the work that was done and the opportunity for continuous improvement. Uh one of those things uh councelor you raised is the education and and knowledge and also councelor Hublau's comment regarding other materials in the recycling bin. I think it is really important that we continue uh working hard and and finding other channels in order to share information with our residents so that they know how they can dispose of the materials appropriately. So with the uh the change in the recycling that took place in January, it wasn't only a change for the province taking over, but more materials were accepted. So, it's really making sure that through the guidance that we're going to be providing to the the collectors, we'll leverage the counselor's office as well to to share that information with residents. Our inspectors do a good job going out and having those conversations with residents to be able to support them uh to um to know where and how to properly dispose of their materials. So, that will continue and that's a theme that uh that opportunity has uh come out through this audit. Thank you very much, Councelor uh Hill. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. Uh how um how does staff see uh some of the recommendations from this audit connecting to concerns that we've seen over the last year or so as it pertains to illegal dumping um and the pressures that are being placed on households who are facing additional uh waste requirements um and their their decisions on what to do. Um because anecdotally I have heard substantive stories from commercial plazas, from people driving by ditches and parks uh seeing um what what I think fairly is is a substantial increase in illegal dumping. I don't know that I have good solid um data to back that up. Um, and I don't know that you have an answer to precisely that data today, but I would suggest that in the coming months as we get into environment committee that we look seriously at that issue. Um, which I have certainly heard time and time again. So, if you have a comment on how this connects to illegal dumping, I would be happy to hear it, but you don't need to if you don't have a comment on it. >> Thank you for the question. So, I'll start by providing some asurances. Uh I asked the team to pull uh different data sets for me. So recognizing when illegal dumping is is reported. Uh we could be collecting it through our parks waste collectors. Uh it could be uh bylaw who are picking it up. It could be our road staff who are picking it up and disposing of it in city facilities. So I basically taken the the tonnage for the last three years from all of those sites and I can still confidently say that with the policy implementation we are still still seeing a decrease in the materials that are going to landfill. Rec recognizing though it it's it's not perfect. We have though uh through the three item limit promoted more avenues to report on illegal dumping. I I just stress for people to continue to report. So then that way we we have awareness and that we're able to work in order to come up with with different ways of being able to to tackle this. Uh certainly the uh the commercial properties they're undergoing a lot of stress. So certainly wanting to to see what we can do in order to provide education and as well working with our colleagues in bylaw to see what mechanisms uh can be put in place. So, I think that's ongoing uh and and welcome the opportunity to continue to to work with you, counselor, on that item. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Hubley. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I want to echo uh councelor Kavanagh's uh praise for Shelley and her staff for an inspector uh out in our area is a major problem solver as you well know uh and likes to think outside the can. So, I appreciate it. Uh, so my question that I was going to the auditor for, but uh they um suggested it might be better to put to you. I know I've seen it in reports in the past, but based on what they're saying to us here in the audit, it sounds like still an issue with stuff getting in the the recycle streams where we pay more money or the taxpayer pays more money to take it away and then it just gets put in the landfill where if it went there in the first place, it' be a lot cheaper. Thank you for the question. Yes, you're absolutely correct. It's important with the the blue box program that the the pros the producers of those products are responsible and fully accountable for the collection and the processing costs. So leveraging those blue bins and black bins appropriately. So as a city, it's important for us to continue with that education so that residents are aware of where the material should go. So then that way the material that that is left in in the garbage that doesn't go to the green bin or or doesn't uh leverage any other diversion programs is smaller. So then that way we're only managing what we need to be managing uh from uh that garbage stream perspective. >> Good. Now, I I realize we don't have control over this, but you do uh hopefully have a good working relationship with the new recycler, and I'm wondering like there there's talk about they're switching the bins to all one color, so your paper and plastic will go in the same color bin, but not the same bin, which is going to lead to a lot of confusion and a lot of problems. Are we encouraging them at all to hold off on that move for now? I'm not aware of the single bin counselor, so I will need to circle back with >> not single, but a single color like I understood they they want to go to a black bin for paper and a black bin for what is now blue box. >> Yeah, I am I am not aware. I'll have to back with circular materials and and Miller on that. >> Okay, >> thank you for flagging. >> Okay, that's it for me. Thank you. >> Thank you, uh, councelor Kits. Thank you, chair. Um so 78% of residents are serviced by private contractors, 22% uh by city crews. I believe the rationale for maintaining uh in-house operation was to uh benchmark costs and uh performance against private contractors. Um but the report says that we haven't established a framework uh to make that comparison and that it won't be in place until the second quarter of 2028. So I'm just I'm just wondering why the delay. >> Thank you for the question. So in part we switched over to the new collection contract uh at the end of March of this year. And so wanting to basically give enough time to acclimatize to the new regime with the the separately collected leaf and yard waste, the the new collection area in order to solidify what resources we would be requiring internally to then establish then moving forward what that what those measures and numbers would be. So wanting to give us sufficient time to establish the new norm for us internally to then move forward to that benchmarking uh opportunity. >> Okay. Um, thank you for that and that will come back as a report to to council. >> Yes. So, we may add it into the annual report that we do uh from a solid waste um the management update uh because that may be uh a more comprehensive way to be looking at everything related to solid waste. >> Okay. Thank you. And then for the almost 9,500 um bad actors that received more than five warnings, are we are we doing anything to change how we approach um you know more targeted or strategic enforcement there? >> Thank you for the question. So part of the recommendation we will be looking at um a framework that we'll be bringing back to committee and council for for your approval uh in this next term recognizing like for us to understand what are the the natures of the um of the tags that are left and also to cross cross reference to see whether or not our inspectors have actually gone uh to some of those properties. So to date inspectors would go out if there's an issue or a complaint that's raised. So it may be that some of those instances we have done that uh that personal visit uh in order to uh to address the issue. Uh so it it's really for us we we treat them individually in order to understand what are the circumstances um before uh um and working with them in order to determine how best to to remedy the situation. So all that to say we will be coming back with uh with a guidance document uh for committee and council's approval. Okay, thank you. And then last uh question, just building on um Councelor Hill's questioning about illegal dumping. Do you have a sense of hot spots in the city? And um if you do, do you know if the rural area is being uh more heavily impacted than the rest of the city? >> Uh thank you for that question. So right now, top of mind, I have hotspots when it comes to parks. uh and I I'll need to confer with my colleagues in order to understand if there are specific rural areas that are hotspots. >> Okay. We hear anecdotally that you know I think in the leadup to the changes the rural area was very concerned that we'd see an increase in illegal dumping and anecdotally we do see a lot of you know bags thrown sort of on back roads. So it would be good to to understand um whether it's having a a greater impact on rural versus the rest of the city. Thank you. All right. So, um, no further questions. So, the audit recommendation here is that the audit committee receive the audit report and recommend that council consider and approve the recommendation. Is this, uh, carried? >> Yeah. >> Carried. All right. We're going to take a 10-minute break here to do the switch up and we'll come back for the auditor 311. We're missing people. >> We do have quorum, >> so we can get going. All right. Our next item, item 5.5, Office of the Auditor General, the audit of 311. Weber. Thanks, Natalie. 311 is the city of Ottawa's centralized non-emergency customer service system that serves as a single point of contact for clients to access municipal services, information, and support. Interactions with 311 generally fall into three main categories. The first being service requests, where clients can report or request matters that require action from a service area, such as repairing a pothole or picking up a misgar collection. The second being information requests where 311 agents provide clarification or guidance directly to clients and no operational work is required. And the third being transfer requests where 311 agents will help clients who require direct access to a city department or city staff member. Clients can contact 311 through multiple channels including by phone, online service request forms, in person, and through email inboxes. Phone is the most popular channel and in 2025 311 received over 450,000 calls. Next slide, please. The objective of this audit was to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of 311 operations used to serve clients while considering the prudent use of public funds. The audit examined 311 operations for the period of January 21st, 2025 through to February 28th, 2026. The audit evaluated the call intake process, the submission methods offered by 311, processes in place by service areas to action and close service requests, and compliance with established service timelines. For the purposes of receiving and actioning service requests, given that they represented 65% of all service requests generated by 311 in 2025, the scope was primarily focused on but not limited to solid waste bylaw enforcement and roads maintenance. Next slide, please. Now on to the key findings. The first finding is around management's influence over response times. The most important target for 311 management based on the nature of its operations is the average speed to answer, which is how long a client waits on the phone before speaking to an agent. 311 set an average speed to answer target of 7 minutes and 52 seconds. As of June 2026, 311 has consistently experienced an average speed to answer of roughly 5 minutes and 35 seconds. While 311 has improved its average speed to answer time and is meeting its internal goal, the time continues to be high, especially when compared to other benchmark municipalities. Long wait times can result in client frustration, increased abandoned calls, and clients turning to other mechanism such as email or through their ward counselor, which places a further strain on resources across the city and in some cases creates inefficiencies. We understand that the main lever 311 has available to them to reduce their average speed to answer would be to increase resourcing. However, taking into consideration the city's budgetary constraints, the audit reviewed what other mechanisms would be available to help the city achieve this goal. The audit found that the online reporting option is the most efficient method to log requests for service as it prompts clients to fill out all information required to create the requests and eliminates the need to speak to an agent. Therefore, a more realistic alternative would be to attempt to influence the volume of calls 311 receives by promoting this online reporting option. The second finding relates to inconsistencies noted in the handling and processing of client phone interactions. For context, 311 has protocols in place to help ensure a predictable and repeatable process that agents are expected to follow when interacting with agent with clients. They also have a quality assurance program which was revamped and relaunched in 2026 which we used as a baseline for our audit. During the audit, we observed varying levels of adherence to the call c center's expectations. Some examples include agents not providing sufficient explanations for the collection of personal information, not providing service timelines, not promoting online options, not providing accurate information, and the creation of duplicate service requests. As a result, these inconsistencies can lead to differing experiencing experiences for clients, which can impact 311 service reputation and can cause additional call volumes to 311 with clients requiring further followup. Next slide, please. The third finding relates to email inquiries and requests. 311 manages an email address that can be used by the public to submit an inquiry or request. The expected timeline for initial response from this inbox is 48 hours. There are designated agents who are trained to process email responses. However, phone lines are always prioritized. 311 also manages an internal inboxes inbox for counselor's offices and other internal staff. The audit found that public email submissions increased 66% from 2024 to 2025. and our testing found that the response time of 48 hours was not met in 60% of the emails reviewed. Delays range from a few days late up to 35 days late. This emphasized the fact that email appears to be the least efficient submission method as there's potential for wasted time and resources due to the back and forth required to gather all of the necessary information and due to the fact that phone lines are always prioritized. Since the online option has developed over the years and can be used for most routine service requests, it is a more efficient method of electronic communication as compared to email. Other municipalities have taken note of this and have moved away from email as a primary intake channel. The audit found that submissions to the internal inbox also increased by 14%. And it appears residents are reaching out directly to their counselors more frequently as an alternative way to contact 311. As phone lines are always prioritized and only a subset of agents respond to emails, this results in 311 not meeting service timelines, which can cause frustration for clients and may end up with issues being escalated to counselor's offices, which is overall an inefficient use of resources. The fourth finding relates to service request documentation and closure. Once intake is complete by 311, service requests are sent to the appropriate service areas who are responsible for recording actions taken, documenting notes when applicable, and closing the request once the requested work has been completed. The audit found that expectations around service request documentation requirements were not formalized and in some service areas clear expectations around the documentation of work completed and requirements for closure could not be readily identified. The OG performed detailed testing on 49 service requests and found that eight were not in compliance with associated service area expectations and found three instances where requests were closed before all work was completed. The lack of clear expectations increases the risk of incomplete records and the potential for inconsistent or inaccurate information being provided to clients. Next slide, please. The fifth finding relates to abandoned calls. Calls placed to 311 increased slightly by 2% from 2024 to 2025. However, the number of abandoned calls increased by 54%. 311 introduced more accurate wait times as part of its automated messaging in August 2025, which management believed would result in more calls being abandoned in the early stages. The audit found that calls abandoned within 0 to four minutes decreased in 2025. Will calls abandoned after clients were already waiting 7 minutes or longer increased. The OG performed test calls to 311 as part of our audit. We noted that upon entering the queue, the client was provided with a specific wait time, for example, 25 minutes. Every few minutes they are provided with the total estimated live Q wait time which is typically around the initial provided wait time of 25 minutes or a few minutes longer not their remaining wait time. This could lead to client this could lead clients to believe they are not moving through the queue causing frustration and potentially leading them to hang up before reaching an agent. Next slide please. In summary, this audit found that 311 is fulfilling its mandate as a centralized as a city centralized point of access for most municipal services, information, and service requests. However, opportunities were identified to help improve service delivery and operational efficiency. The audit made nine recommendations and management agreed to all of them. This concludes our presentation and we would be happy to take any questions committee members may have related to this audit. Thank you. Questions for the Auditor General, Councelor Kavanagh. Thank you, Chair. Um, and I appreciate this report and I think it's very valuable to all counselors because it's probably our um the number one thing we deal with is is um we get the bounce back if things don't go through 311. So, um I'm very appreciative. Um so, was this I apologize. This is through the a waste and fraud hotline that this came up >> chair. No, this was uh an audit that I put on our audit plan as a result of our risk assessment that we performed. >> Oh, okay. Because there must is there any kind of cost issue related to this as well? um just in terms of efficiencies and um you know making best use of the staff at 311 who we have total respect for by the way they do an amazing job. I think if I were to summarize what um our report is saying when it comes to overall efficiencies, which obviously ends up uh being either a an extra cost or a cost savings to the city, is we're we were trying to find what was the most effective means for uh residents to report their concerns. And as Julia highlighted in our presentation, it's online. It avoids that back and forth. If you send an email about a particular issue, you might not know all the questions or details that the city's looking for to be able to action it. Same thing if you have uh somebody coming to your office uh with a complaint, it's a lot easier. Um you know, you're going to have to do that back and forth. Your team will to try to get all the information to relay it over to city staff. City staff might have more questions for you. You've got to go back to the resident. It's not efficient. So at the end of the day that is costing the city more uh from um an opportunity cost at a minimum. Your your team members could be uh you know dealing with other things during that time as could city staff when they're doing the back and forth via email. >> Yeah. No, and I feel guilty because we often say to them, you know, use the um you know, here's the email that you can send it to. And I'm just realizing that that wasn't such a great idea. So um that we we have to send it to the online um and uh so that because that's it happens all the time. People do not give you all the information and then you have to ask you know they'll say nobody collected my garbage and then they forget to give you their address and things like that. >> Chair uh I would say yes absolutely. Um but I do want to put the caveat we're talking about for the standard types of requests. There are instances where, you know, it might be best to speak to your counselor because you have a a really large concern and it's not something that's a fill-in-thebox, check the box type exercise, such as my garbage wasn't picked up or I want to report a pothole. Uh, you know, those are very standard types of requests. We also know that not everybody is comfortable with online tools. So, you will obviously still have residents that are going to come to you and and we respect that. Some people that's just their preference and that's that's a situation that your offices are going to still be faced with. >> Yeah. You compared it with other municipalities, correct? Yeah. Is there any use of a AI in in terms of um other municipalities that's obviously coming up a lot? Um yes through you chair we did do some benchmarking and uh wind excuse me Windsor and Vancouver are definitely leveraging that and as Julia mentioned in the presentation they're really shying away from email uh communication because of the inefficiency of it. Um and so that's where our recommendations are coming from. >> Okay. Thank you very much Hill. >> Thank you uh Madame Chair and thank you for the audit. I think this is really important. I think there are substantive places where 311 can improve. I would agree with that completely and I think you've addressed a number of them in this audit. I look forward to talking to management about some of those points. Uh however, I am concerned that that much of the solution space that's being re recommended here is focusing on staff processes i.e. the sausage making as opposed to the customerfacing interface. um when I am engaged with a let's call it a routine um resident issue um I want to ensure that the process for them is as smooth as simple as as possible um and my concern would be if we're going to transition to a a portal or a modernized app tool uh for which it becomes easy for them to do drop- down menus they have to know exactly where to go. If there's a garbage issue, they have to know exactly where to go. If it's a stunt racing issue, they have to know exactly where to go. Uh so we're putting onus on them. And I just want to ensure that whatever road we're going to go down, um in fact, puts the resident first in this equation so that we are giving them the most simplistic mechanism to deal with the problem that arises. Um so that is a preamble to some of the factors in here. So you had mentioned that the that the most effective means that you have identified is through um uh an online uh system and specifically not email. Um how does tracking and followup factor in your analysis of efficiency? Um because certainly tracking and followup I think is very important from the perspective of if the complaint is the garbage wasn't picked up today. Um they put in a a request in the portal, it automatically gets received, good things happen in the back end and a truck comes to pick it up. There's no issue. The issue on 311 comes when there's either a delay or there's not an action taken that is aligned with the expectations of the resident or it just gets lost. And that is the concern that I have here. And that is I think the the a role that certainly I've been playing as much as I can. When I'm made aware that there's something dropped or a problem, I can follow that up. If we're moving away from email or moving away from a system where city councilors can have that followup, that gives me some concern. So could you speak to how tracking followup factors in your assessment of best best methods going forward? >> Chair throughu thank you very much for the question counselor. First and foremost I want to highlight that every recommendation has the lens of the best customer experience for our residents when they're calling 311. So we took that into consideration with every recommendation. I also want to highlight that we're not asking the city to do something truly new. They have an established portal that's working really, really well. I can say from firsthand experience, my husband would put in um you know, a complaint saying, "Our garbage was out. It got missed." You know, two or three houses got missed. Within an hour or two, boom, somebody's there. Garbage is picked up. Uh green bin broken handle. You you get a response back right away saying, "Yep, please leave it out uh at the edge of the um curb." and they will come and we'll fix it and that's done within 24 hours. The great thing about the online portal when you talk about understanding kind of where the service is and what followup is the resident can see what the status is. They have a request number um that they can track, they can go back, they can look if they're unsatisfied with the the uh response time because there are service standards that are communicated as to when to expect for these items to be actioned. If they're not satisfied, that's likely when you're going to hear from them, but they'll have a service request number that they can share with you. And if there's more followup that you want to personally do with the city, that would give you that opportunity. But I think the purpose is to try to move away from them having to come to you to ask you to action something because city staff are supposed to be the most effective at actioning these items. Um, and we're seeing that with the with the portal right now. So, it's really trying to add additional items that are more standard nature to uh to the portal. Um, I look to Julie if she'd like to add to that. >> Yeah, just one small point that management will be able to speak to a little bit more, but there is also an active project CX3 which we briefly introduced in our report. Um, that's focused on customer service transparency and enhancing that communication even more with those online options. So, I don't want to misspeak on it, so I'll let management speak on that part, but there are ongoing initiatives that will help address some of those concerns also. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, I'd also like to talk about um the concept of simplicity in our processes because if if we acknowledge that there's going to need to be a phone component and if we acknowledge that there's going to be um a counselor engagement component for for whatever reasons and then we are also acknowledging that we want to push further on an online uh city portal type model. um we're we're splitting into multiple different systems as opposed to looking to consolidate or simplify on less systems. Um is that a factor in your assessment of efficiency? Because again, my concern would be if I'm now as a counselor dealing with one resident on a garbage issue in one way and a different resident on another way and there's three other residents that I don't even know how their process is going because I'm not even in the loop on it. My concern would be that some of them would see a different level of standard of care being applied to them >> through you chair councelor. I think what you just described is what's happening. We're trying to help the city stray away from that. We're trying to direct people more to one mechanism because it is the most efficient and likely to provide them the best customer experience. So we're not trying to create more processes. We're actually trying to reduce them for the city and to make sure that it's less ownorous on the resident and that it's clear as to where they're supposed to go. >> Um, okay. Thank you. I think my rest are for uh for staff. Thank you. >> Thank you, councelor Kr. Thanks very much. I just have a couple quick questions. I think uh majority of mine are for staff. Um, I'll say first of all that I'm uh sympathetic to the staff that work in 311. Um and I think um you know as counselors we sometimes get frustrated when things come to us but I I do want to say that um I I I am very sympathetic to the staff who work there and on occasion when I get a commendation for a staff in 311 I send it directly to Sarel because I I think that they have a a tough job to do and and the demands of the public um and and uh it weighs heavy on it. And so my question is really when you looked at the audit and you looked at all of um you know the scope of this audit um was staff turnover at all a factor in this? I know it wasn't noted in here but I would expect that this would be a high turnover area and you know sometimes you know the process has not been updated. This was that something at all that you looked at >> chair through you uh is a great question counselor. What I can say is this audit and our previous audit, those are um city jobs that are entry level. So it's where you get your foot in the door. So while this isn't, you know, a result of our audit, this is something that we're knowledgeable on. And so there is turnover from that perspective. And that does make it I think more difficult for management to manage from that perspective. I think that's just a um the reality of the situation. Um I I do think they're generally managing that quite well though. But I looked to Julia to see I know she may have anecdotally heard a few additional items. >> Yeah, just to add it was definitely considered but based on conversations it wasn't anything out of the norm or something that deserved further looking into. So like Natalie mentioned there is turnover but nothing out of the norm when compared to other call centers or other type of positions like this. >> Okay, thank you very much. Um and in some of the examples that were given it talked about a request being closed early. Now, that's something that would happen in the in the department that it gets farmed out to, right? It's not within 311 itself. >> Yes, that's correct. And if I were to give a couple of examples, um sometimes if there's duplicate requests, the the service area might say, "Okay, we're going to close all but one." But obviously what we're trying to highlight is, you know, if I'm a resident and I'm looking at the status of a service request and I've asked for a pothole to be filled and that request was closed, but I still clearly see the pothole wasn't filled. I'm not going to be satisfied with that outcome. So, it's going back to ensuring that the communication that's going back to the resident is clear and accurate and provides that better experience. >> Yeah. And I think that's something that we we've all lived around the table. Um just one last qu question. Uh it alluded to the fact that um you know there's been a corresponding increase in counselor's emails and you talked about in terms of looking at you looked at technology in in different um uh jurisdictions as well. Did you by chance look to see if there was when you were looking at other jurisdictions to see if those areas had the same alliance on counselor's office to supplement the service at all? >> Um so we obviously did some benchmarking. It was with what was available um publicly. Um so I'm not sure if I could definitely speak for the reliance on counselor's office. we were able to speak more uh globally from an email perspective. Um that being said, I think what happens and if if I were to, you know, try to back up with everything that we've seen throughout this audit, if you look at the abandoned calls, I if you look at some of the service requests being closed and the actions not being taken, I I could see how that would result in more emails to counselor's offices because you're going to have constituents that are not necessarily happy or satisfied with the outcome. Um, there is obviously the element of maybe not knowing where to go, which is where you're going to get that those information requests. And I think that's where we're mentioning there could be greater technology where if somebody goes to the city's website, you can quickly type something in and it'll tell you where to get the information or how to submit a complaint more easily as opposed to trying to navigate the website. >> Yeah. Thank you very much uh for this audit. I don't have any further questions for you, >> Councelor Kits. Thank you, chair. Uh, yeah, thank you for this audit. The senior leadership team will know I've been had my eye on 311 uh improvement for some time. Um, and I think, you know, part of the issue is just the way society has moved in terms of an an instantaneous response. And Sarah will know like my dream for 311 is the Domino's pizza model. If you order a pizza at Domino's, you can follow it. It's in the oven. They put the toppings on, you know, it's put in the box. it's ready to go. And so that's people's expectation. And so with 311, when they're not seeing their request move through those steps, they get very frustrated. And I'm glad that the um report identifies the counselor's offices are really sort of picking up the slack because it is felt. Um it is definitely felt. Um in terms of benchmarking with other cities, I don't know if you can explain like where Ottawa ranks. like the abandon rate to me seems quite high. Is it high relative to other cities? Um, so from the benchmarking we did, it was all on publicly available information. So they didn't highlight call abandonments as much, but it more so focused on their set time targets and the percentage that they were able to answer the calls within that. Um, so the two main ones we looked at were Toronto and Windsor. And I just want to make sure I don't miss the two up, but one was 45 like 80 answering 80% of calls within 45 seconds. in the other sorry I'm just looking to the report quickly was 75 seconds I believe so it speaks more to how frequently they were able to meet that target but it didn't specifically um segregate for abandoned calls >> okay counselor what I would add is even if you just look at historically comparing city numbers that abandonment number was significantly high and you know we we mentioned in the report that we believe that the the wait time messaging ing that was added 311 was likely causing some confusion which is probably why that uh abandonment rate went up significantly. Um and serial's team has already taken action and is continuing to look at even better improvements to ensure that the communication that's happening you know even just while you're waiting on hold uh that that is you know um clearer to uh to residents. >> Okay. Thank you. And then the other thing that stood out to me is that the service standards um mean very different things depending on the department. So you know for example a six week standard uh for a tree related request may only mean that uh an inspection has taken place versus that the work has actually been completed. So from an audit perspective, are we measuring the right things if a request um can be considered compliant with our service standard, but from the resident's perspective, their underlying concern has not been resolved. >> Chair um through you, it's a great question, counselor, and I think that's the overarching element that we're trying to get across, which is what's being communicated to the residents so they can have realistic expectations of what actions are being taken. Um I you mentioned you know that our our society wanting you know quicker response. Even just understanding what the process is going to look like for their uh concern to be addressed is I think it goes a long way with regards to what expectations they continue to have throughout the process. Uh and I I obviously I think management's agreed with uh with that and our hopes is that that will provide a greater experience for them. Okay. Thank you very much, Vice Chair Hubley. Excuse me. Sorry, Vice Chair Hubley. >> Thank you. I wasn't going to say anything until Katherine or Councelor Kits brought up that great idea. So, I'm hoping uh that Serial is going to be able to give us a free pizza for the rest is not done in 30 minutes. Pretty long. Yeah. Um my question uh I don't have a lot but um one of my big pet peeves is that the SR is created and it goes in for parks and somebody in parks says no that belongs in roads and it gets cancelled and there's no communication between the two. That's not the fault of 311. Like the operators are great the you know Michelle's team and uh Michael when the supervisors are always very very helpful. that's a a pipeline issue, how we're we're dealing with it. Did you come across that? And if so, what did did you come up with any solutions? >> Um, so we did notice a few instances of those, but for the sample we picked, I'd say they were pretty it wasn't a very common occurrence. So, we did observe with 311 they do have a process in place for that, and they do have a dedicated agent who processes these redirects. Um, so we were able to observe the process and can see there are some nuances or depending on information that the resident gives when they're logging it, they may think it's one path and then when the team actually actions it, they realize it belongs somewhere else. Um, so we didn't focus directly on it in our testing. We did see a couple oneoff examples and we did see a process in place that they do have to help assist with that in the background. >> Okay. So that must be a new process then because I'm pretty certain we've had more than a hundred of those in the last four years. So it's a lot more common than one of but u maybe when staff come up they can say when they implemented that process but that's good news that there's a process. >> Chair I I would just add to that counselor that it's it's an evolving process. We're definitely seeing improvements from that perspective but we really did take the angle of the 311 element. So what's coming in, how's 311 managing it and what information is being communicated back to the resident. So we didn't go necessarily really deep down into each service area, but we wanted to understand you. We had to understand whether action was taken to see if appropriate information was communicated back to the resident. >> And it is one of the uh areas of the city that is under a lot of change right now. uh a lot of good ideas coming out of there and changes to like I believe forestry and bylaw have been changed already and how their um SRS are handled and everything and and it looks very promising. So thank you for uh giving them some other tips. So okay that's it. Thanks madam chair. >> Thank you. Questions for staff. Councelor Brown. >> Thank you very much Madam Chair and quick thank you to the auditor and her team for the work they've done on this audit. Um, I I know we're doing a lot to improve the customer service experience of the city. I do feel like every member of council is a glorified 311 agent. It is a significant uh task trying to handle residents and expectations. And to councelor Kits's uh comment, there is an expectation of a very rapid response. And when residents aren't getting that through the city, they default to us because as a counselor, I'm expected to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and have the answer immediately. Um, I've been able to work with Sirill and his team over the past 18 months on the agile government working group, as have a few of my colleagues. And before I ask some specific questions about the audit, I think there's some valuable context, Sarah, that you might be able to provide about some of the things that we're already working on that address the audit. and then I'll have a couple call follow-up questions for you after >> uh through the chair. So, thank you for that teeing me up. Uh not not planned, I'm I'm sure. Um it was a plan actually. So what I would what I would say is I think you know thank you councelor Carr, councelor for saying thanks to the the team because the agents do take it and I want to say a big thanks to Michelle, Natalie and Mikey and all the agents cuz they are the first point of contact when residents are dealing with issues which we get that uh but the team strives to do what we need to do which is really you know receive the call, triage the call and route the call. And I think Natalie has outlined in on the closing slide we are meeting our mandate but it doesn't mean we can't do better. I think we can always do better. there's always things we can do to improve. And another point I want to highlight as well is a lot of this work was started not because of an audit was coming. So you know through the AGWG uh we came before that team in 2025 councily Brown and and Kits and and others and we talked about the C CX360 plan. uh we knew that there was lots of work to be done in 301 to improve that and we've been really taking a stage incremental innovation incremental improvements continuous improvement approach to it and we've done a lot of work in parallel throughout that process and I think Natalie's picked up on some of that work and when she came to me about this audit I thought it was perfect timing because it was we had already started the work so it was a great time for us to get extra validation in terms that we're on the right track by no means are we're saying that yes is the online form the most efficient uh process tool pool. Yes, it is. But we live in a very broad uh city. We're a very broad demographic that we need to offer other services as well. We're not saying we're getting rid of other services. We still need to maintain the customer client service center. You can come in there and get questions that you could on 311 or online tools. Depending on where you are as a resident, some people like digital, some people don't like digital. So, we're still trying to make improvements in all areas of avenues into the system, whether it's digital, phone, email, client service center. uh and you know the last stop would be call Mikey from your office and Mikey will take care for it relatively quickly. So that's the work that we've been on and I can you know I can throw some stats here like we released a memo yesterday. Uh we've added over 20 more forms online in the last 3 four months. We have another 30 that could come online before the end of the year. What we're seeing is in that short time frame we're seeing our call volume go down by 8%. But we're seeing our online usage go up by 10%. So that's about 12 to 13,000 calls that we're not now getting. Now what that does is it helps us now address this abandoned call issue right as you know as many many pieces in this pie. It's not one solution that all got to come together you know seamlessly. In September we also updated our call wait time. So before as as the otter talked about you know if you called you would say yep 25 minutes you're waiting 5 minutes and you're still at 25 minutes. Well that's not realistic. So now we've have a real time uh call update. So now that call update is for you. So if you're in the queue and you got a 9m minute wait time, you know that message comes back up three minutes time, you got now should have a six minute wait time. So we we've added that real time wait time there. We've seen a 15% reduction in our abandon of calls. AI uh so this you you would have seen this in in throughout the summer months. Uh every employee in the organization's got access to our.ca bot that's in testing. It's in beta testing. Uh, as of yesterday, we've received over 8,600 uh, inquiries and and cues from internal staff. So, this is a bot that we're building for audible.ca where you can go in there and ask the simple questions. A lot of a lot of things that come through 301 is really about, you know, is my garbage being picked up today? So, we're building that tool uh, that that's on the horizon to be released. We briefed a GWG on this, but again, like any tool, we need to make sure we do all the testing because AI is driven by the prompt. So, if you ask the if you don't have the right question, you don't get the right answer. So that's why we deployed this across the organization back in the July time frame. And again, as of yesterday, we had over 8,600 different use cases feeding back into that to build on the improvements. We also have a new tool, what we call the CAT. So it's a call analysis tool. Again, another piece of AI where we're going to have the ability to do real-time call analysis. So as you can appreciate, we get, you know, between 450 to 500,000 calls per year. the amount of time it would take to analyze that tool or those calls is substantial. But this is the benefit of AI is doing that that quick quantitative analysis on the fly. So that tool is in development. I think that's ready to go probably early in the new year. We're also working on another tool for for our app. Uh the city does have an app that uh is out there, but we're actually revitalizing that app and that'll be coming in a new year as well. And that would be another tool where you know it'll be the start of the process where we're giving another ability for the end user to add that capability if they choose to use it. So again those are just a list of some of the improvements that we've done to date. The journey will continue. We're working closely with Bloomberg. We kicked off uh last week or the week before in terms of doing a pilot project in the overall service request journey across the city because the challenge is you know if I only made pizzas life would be so easy right? You're making a pizza in a controlled environment in a controlled oven. It's the same thing. Five minutes in, five minutes out. You know, we're dealing with multiple different services over 100 different services in this organization. And a pothole is not a pothole. A pothole today could be, you know, quite differently how we respond to that pothole in the dead of winter, right? Depends on the size where it is and all the other variable impacts for that. So getting to that panacea, yes, that's what we're striving for, but we need to be pragmatic about it. We need to be realistic about it. And the journey that we're on is that continuous improvement. We're continuously to move forward with that. And the last thing I'll kind of wrap up before I kind of pause and stop talking is on the staffing side of the equation. So it is a door into the organization. It's a very good door into the organization. And we have a lot of success where people come into the organization in 31 and move on to other career aspects of the city. And that is the beauty of this city. We have so many different opportunities for career career growth and advancement. It is a good door in because we get a lot of value of individuals that come through 311 and then move on to other areas. We have a compliment I think about 50 56 or so roughly FTEES. That's a combination of full-time, part-time, and casual. We typically run a vacancy of about five FTEEs at any given time. On top of that, we're also because of the transition in normal turnover, we're always training training training. So another thing that we uh myself Michelle have been working closely with my HR team is is how can we do things differently. So we've been our supervisors are basically spending most of their days training training training. So now we kind of dialed that back where we're going to shift some of that accountability over to HR so the right people are doing training so the 311 staff can actually focus on the right value and do better do more QA, do more support, do more etc. Uh and then the other last thing I'll speak to is which was in that memo yesterday as well that I released is we're also looking at other areas of the organization where we can train uh non- 311 agents to do 311 agent work when things peak because the challenge is when things peak that's when all of our issues arise. So in a normal day-to-day you know 9 to5 things are good in the city no crazy weather no crazy snowfall things are pretty good but soon as that spike occurs now all of a sudden you have you know the pipeline is only so big right? So you can't staff up that fast because the pipeline comes down quite fast. So we're trying to leverage, you know, existing talent in organization that you know, maybe we can pull someone off the queue and add to this queue over here, uh, without interrupting the services over there. So that's just kind of a little bit of a, you know, a long-winded way of all things that we're doing and continue to work towards in terms of improving some of the challenges that we hear about in 311. Okay. >> Thank you very much. with regards to the call abandonment because that's a significant portion of residents who are looking for service that are are being denied that service if they believe the wait time's too long and my office keeps track of how many residents call us and say I couldn't get through to 311. So we record that because it's important for me to know where those pressure points are as an elected official. I know we've cut the decision tree down so when you call in it's not as long as it used to be but it's still too long. like it is still too long when you sit there and and all you want to do is report something. Do you believe that there are other tools that we can look at leveraging whether we're looking at them now or or things that are available on the market to not only reduce the the decision tree wait time but then actually get the resident where they need to be because ultimately a pothole might be different between summer and winter but it is still a pothole. And if that's why people are calling or missed garbage collection, not waiting 2 minutes to be able to say yet garbage. Um, is there something that we're looking at to expedite that? >> You know, it's always that fine balance and I think it, you know, it's through the AGWG where the the call tree was where we took the action to reduce it because I think it was over a minute or so before you even got to the option of getting to an agent. Now we got it down to >> 245 to 110. >> So 245 down to 110. So substantial improvement. The other challenge is if we go right to an agent then you're you're actually jamming up agent's time now. So now you might get to the call but you're actually going to jam it up because now there might be more red diverts at the agent level. So we're trying to balance out that you know a little bit of a sweet spot if you will in terms of having a little bit of decision tree where the resident can decide where to go. So it helps the agent side. The cat the uh call analysis tool I think is going to give us a lot of good insight. So I think that's the tool that we're going to leverage in terms of seeing those decision matrices and see where we can go. Uh I'm not aware of any other tool but we're always out there working closely with with other agencies and and in the benchmarking thing you know that's something we're going to dig into. Uh because again benchmarking if you just go global and look at a benchmark it's just a number right we need to dig into it. So we need to be talking to Toronto we need to talk to Windsor. need to talk them to. We're even going to go in other organizations uh in internationally to see exactly some of the things they do, but we're not aware of any other tools that we can leverage today other than the ones that we're doing. >> Well, thank you very much. And I I just want to say, you know, Mikey's been great. My team have nothing but great things to say about him and how he helps, you know, navigate. It's unfortunate that we have a position to help us do that because ultimately that shows a lot of the inefficiency, but Mike, you do a great job. Um, also I'd like to acknowledge that we've got some really great 311 agents. Sylvie being one of them that comes to mind. I don't know what we will do when Sylvie decides to retire. Um, but I I think, you know, building on that, I I think there's an opportunity to try to build our 311 agents into something more than just an entrylevel position because ultimately it's one of the most important functions that we offer as an organization. They are the front line. they're the ones dealing with residents and not always on the best day for the residents. So, what are we doing to try to to manage that staffing level? I know you made a few comments a few minutes ago, but how can we make these roles less of just an entry level and more of something that someone might want to stick with longer term? You know, through the chair, what we've done in the past two years is create a little bit of a structure of advancement within a team. So you know we have the 31 agents but we also got now got a suite of business analysts within the team as we're exploring these new technologies. Uh we have a project lead in terms of this these new types of emerging technologies within the team. Uh the QA team was created in 2025 late 2025 deployed in 2026. So those are just four examples where we've added a little bit of a better structure into the team itself. So that way we give the opportunity for retaining the knowledge within the team but still advance the development. So that's just a small example where we you know we're trying to retain the existing good talent for that uh little bit of a succession and development plan. >> Thank you very much and I'm looking forward to you talking more about the dominoes model. I haven't given up the game yet. So thank you very much Madam Chair. >> Thank you councelor Hill. >> Uh thank you. Thank you sir for the uh for the detailed uh introduction to where we were and where we're going and I'm really appreciative of it because certainly I think there's there's room for improvement and it seems like you're on top of it. Um I with the abandoned calls and the time it takes on a phone call to get through I I still don't completely understand why we haven't solved that just yet. You know to me there is an automated component that comes with the immediate phone call where within 5 seconds uh there's a hello what's up and the person can then state their case. Okay I I have a concern with my garbage. I have a concern with a tree and then that then gets filtered into the next level of AI or to the next level of technology that says right you have a tree issue is it an XY Z type thing and then at that point it gets filtered off to uh the person over you know 3 minutes 5 minutes whatever the wait time is it is that what you're describing to me or am I describing where we're going it's kind of describing a little bit where we may go and I'll frame it may go because I'll use the AI it's not going to be the panacea to everything. You know, in the past uh 3 weeks, I've had two, you know, very frustrating encounters with AI at a personal level, whether it was trying to reschedule a dentist appointment or trying to get my car into the garage for an oil change. And I can tell you in both scenarios, I had the same issues, the long tree of of you know, press this button, press this button, press this button. Sometimes my H's come and go. So, that really confuses the AI from my New accident a little bit. Then there's a reset. And I can tell you trying to get my car in for an oil change took me eight different times to get to finally on the eight call because I kept abandoning the call. Finally someone at the dealership picked up and I was like are you human because I need to talk to a human right now. So I think you know in a perfect world as the technology evolves and gets there I think it will be a tool that we will have in our toolbox but we're not just there yet because no matter what you still got to triage the questions because I don't know what you're calling for. Even if you're calling say okay there's a pothole. Okay, what street is it on? You know, what intersection? So there's additional incremental details and that's where the friction starts to occur in terms of the wait time. Uh so even on the you know current process today again as the call volume spike now we have agents trying to filter through that information, get additional information. So our agents sometimes are trying to get more information to try and get you to the right spot sooner. Sometimes that takes a little longer. Then of course the queue backs up. So, it's a little bit of a matrix kind of view of it, but that's what we're trying trying to deal with to make sure, you know, we kind of approach it from all angles. >> Okay. Um, is the technology that we're looking at going to be something that could potentially draw metadata out of photographs so that a resident takes a picture of the pothole and downloads that onto the website or the portal and then just automatically the technology sucks out of that the exact geol location. um that takes a look at the pothole in terms of the severity uh and does an analysis from the actual data that's going into the system through photographs >> uh through the chair. So that's the end goal. Uh so right now as we're kind of piling the the app that we're working on, it does have the ability to upload a picture, but of course we're going to have to, you know, in terms of GPS pinging where you're at, that technology may not be there on the offset because it get starts to get a little bit complex. But what we're doing from an app perspective is we will have the ability to upload a photo. So if you're, you know, out in the street and you see a a sign down, you can take that picture, go to your service request, fill out your service request on day one. You still may have to input your location and where that is, but at least you can upload the picture with that. So that's the, you know, that's the process that we're going through. At some point, yes, integrating the GPS functionality to that will be part of the the next phase. So, what we heard from the auditor general is a concern about the 311 email component being less efficient than a portal uh option. I'll get to email in a minute, but if we're going to look at um a direct to uh online option as a preferred way we're trying to stream uh residents, the concern that I would have with that is my ability to follow up on concerns, issues, dropped issues, closed issues inadvertently, um and such. So, is it the intent for this system to allow for an interface for a counselor to be involved in that process? Whether it be a notification or an ability for the counselor to go and see within their ward what different uh service requests have been made over the last few days uh just to follow up and see if there's specific trends, issues, or follow-ups that are required. or that a counselor could even just in input that data on behalf of a resident if a senior citizen calls me up and says this is my concern and they have no ability to do uh the online thing themselves that I just have my team input the data for them. Is is that something that will be a part of the online version so that I can rest easy that in the absence of an email I'm still able to do some followup as that counselor to make sure that the process is happening and ultimately that their complaint is closed? >> Senator Chair, I think first and foremost, you know, we need to make sure that we do offer a variety of channels for issues and it's not always about being the most efficient. Yes, the online could be most efficient, but we still need to serve other residents of the city that may not have access to online or prefer to use email. I think what we're going to be doing is as we go through these various integration and incremental improvements, we get to certain stages, we'll continue to have feedback with the counselors and we're always open, you know, what are you hearing, what are you seeing, what do you need to know, so we can add those improvements as we go along the journey. No, I appreciate that. And I think that is important for some level of um confirmation, validation, uh inputting on behalf of or just follow up to confirm that things are closed out. Uh cuz cuz that is the bulk of the the engagement that I have in this process. Um in terms of staffing, um do you have adequate staff to do what you need to do for 311 or is staffing shortfalls an issue? through the chair. Uh, today we have an adequate staff, right? And I talked about this a little bit in my opening statement, if you will. You know, we have 56 positions. We tend around five vacancies. There's a lot of turnover. So, we're looking at things holistically. It's not about just throwing additional resources at a process that could be streamlined, a process that could be improved. So, as I talked about, you know, working with my HR team to make sure they're doing more of the training as opposed to having core staff, you know, not addressing frontline operational issues. That's one scenario where, you know, take that burden off there. The other side is leveraging other talent in the organization that can certainly be trained and do the 311 function in peak times. Leverage that opportunity. When we get to a point where yeah, we're now have a strain because it is a staffing thing. I will bring that back forward. But first and foremost is making sure the the process, the improvements, leveraging other tools are there first as opposed to just putting more resources into a process that's not optimal. Is this the type of employment that could leverage um other city staff who are on physical medical accommodations or that could leverage co-op programs, college internship programs uh in order to give additional uh capacity uh that otherwise might might have a cost uh through the chair. So we're always balancing you know you know we always got to remember that we do work in a unionized environment. So with within that environment there comes certain you know procedures and process that we need to abide by. So we're always trying to balance that as well. Uh we always look at our accommodations but so we're always you know yes the answer is yes within the structure of a union environment within the structure of you know the job duties and the functionalities. >> I'll just close by saying thank you. I think this is one of the most important audits that have been done and I think this is one of the most important pieces that the city's in the process of cleaning up. Uh, and I think we're going to be in a great space once you've landed this with a few more evolutions. So, thank you, Serial, and thank you to the Auditor General. >> Thank you, Councelor Kavanagh. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, and thank you again to the Auditor General for this uh report. Um, 311 is so valuable to us and it's very much a partner uh with our offices and uh we we have huge respect for their work. Um, I'm glad you mentioned about peak times because I'm just thinking about July 1st. What could have been more of a a juggernaut than that? Um when you've got a stat holiday and you've got over 7,000 people affected by something. Um that was massive and I I don't know how you prepare for that, but um I think it's it's something to look at because it could happen again. Um we're we're very much uh have to be aware of that. So, um I don't know if you have any comments on that specifically, but um I overall people mostly got through, but um you know, obviously they were panicking and um it it's it's like trying to calm people down as well because it it was quite catastrophic. >> Yeah. Through the chair, I think it's a little bit of an extension on the the domino example. We're always working in a very variable environment. So I can tell you in those scenarios, you know, July 1st by by 5:30, myself and Michelle were always talking and we were always like staff up, staff up. Of course, it's on a kind of day, you know, a holiday, so people are out and about, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, we're always challenged with those scenarios that we're dealing with, but the the team did a great job that day in terms of reacting. We had program managers and supervisors on the call as well, so we had all hands on deck. Uh so typically, you know, as those things come, soon as we're aware of it, we're we're making sure we we're staffing up, you know, and we're prepared like, you know, we can't prepare if we don't see it coming and in some cases when we see the weather coming, obviously, you know, Michelle and the team kind of triage uses and get everyone ready that, you know what, we're going to the weekend is calling for a storm on Saturday, you know, we're going to need some more people on the on call bench, if you will. So, we're always planning there. It's but it's always a challenge when you get blindsided by these one-off events. >> Yeah, it was extraordinary. No doubt. Um, I find that residents um contact our office because they think that's our job and um they they're annoyed if we tell them to go to 311 because, you know, like we're slacking off or something. But even though there's more efficiencies, um I think it would be helpful to have communications on on the best methods and uh and and help people to get the job done. Um, so it would be really great for us like we can put that in our newsletter because the ultimate thing is we want um them to be satisfied and to to you know get get stuff done. Um, but I do want to point out a couple of things like bylaw is probably one of the biggest ones and you can have efficiencies in 311 but if there's not enough bylaw uh agents out there to officers out there um there's going to be um some issues. are not things are not going to get resolved quickly and they're and they're complex usually because it's used parking or property standards are the two biggies. I don't know if you have any comments about that because do we need to staff, you know, does bylaw need to staff up more because of the volume that they're getting? Is are you sort of noticing sectional um areas where there's there's more 311 calls >> uh through the chair? Well, I can tell you in the past 18 months or so, what Michelle does on a weekly basis just sends me a summary of every week's activity and consistently top three and and the OAG kind of highlight as well is, you know, solid waste is always top one or two by typically parking is is number two and then roads depending on the season of and the weather. Those are always your top three runners. So, what we're doing is we're kind of using that data and working closely with with our colleagues in those departments to kind of do another level of analysis on that. you know, what are things that we could potentially be a little bit more proactive for in terms of, you know, getting ahead of some of the the known. So, again, it goes back to that uh the CAT tool, the call analysis tool that I talked about. That type of technology is going to help us, you know, really analyze themes, you know, and scenarios where we may be getting to a point where we can be a bit more proactive and preventative type of outlooks from a 311 perspective. And that will mean going back to our colleagues in in roads, solid waste and uh bylaw to help them with that level of information in terms of what we can see coming. So we're working on that closely with those with our colleagues. >> Thank you. Um I share the concern with my colleagues about abandoned calls. I'm particularly concerned about um older adults who probably would not use the online form. So, they're calling and um they they get frustrated and um uh uh yeah, if there is just something that says, you know, we'll call you back cuz it's going to take too long to to get to you. We'll call you back. Something along that line. But there is a you know, a concern. Um uh and I I suspect with AI they could almost do a verbal form, you know, where you know some cues are are given of what their subject matter is and and it can go down the line so that you know for example if they were getting a call back they would we'd know already that it was about parking or whatever. So um I don't know if that's something that's feasible >> through the chair. You know, again, you know, I'm all for exploring AI and the functionality and the tools, but you know, the AI is not going to solve everything. AI needs to evolve as well in terms of getting there because it could lead to a level of frustration where if the AI agent is not really clearly understanding the speech of the individual relaying the information, it can go quite, you know, I'll call it sideways and create much much more frustration. So, all I'm trying to say is we're we're leveraging technology where we can, where it's going to get value. it will evolve and we'll evolve with it. Uh but where there's opportunities for improvement, that's certainly something that we're always exploring. >> Thank you. Um one thing I heard um at the door because I did a door-to-d dooror survey over the summer as most of us did um was when they called for a pothole um the pothole got filled but there was several others that weren't right beside it and it was like you know they didn't in intuitively say there's a whole bunch of potholes. they just said come and fill the big pothole and and they wondered why they filled one and didn't fill the others. Those kinds of things. So I I think it's it's the messaging, you know, trying to explain to somebody that well maybe you should report that there's a whole bunch of them, but uh those are the kinds of complaints that I got. I mean um so it be just in terms of efficiency that uh you know when they go out that they notice that there's more than one you know so uh so that I've got I had to bring that up. Um now overall um we're very we're very satisfied with um the work of 311 and um the one thing that is special to my ward is uh stage 2 LRT where we're bombarded with complaints because of the construction etc. and it because of the specialty of it that we're working with a um you know a third party because it's a a P3 um it it goes directly to us. So our workload is very high and I don't know if that fits in with 311. We've really haven't used 311. We've had to use stage two directly. Um but um some of it is kind of uh city and some of it is kind of stage two. So, I'm just raising that because it's it's been quite the overload in our office trying to to deal with all the concerns and they're very serious concerns mostly related to safety. So, I don't know if you have any comment about that. >> No, through the chair just just very high level. I mean, this is a request that I would say you know this is kind of in the realm of I would say informative requests. So, it comes in looking is more information related frustration you know inconvenience and nuisance of the construction. So, it's not not necessarily something that we move on to a service request. Obviously, it's something that we either triage over to to transit and or the light rail team, but that's really that kind of bucket. I guess not much to add to that. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, councelor Kits. >> Thank you, chair. Um, I'm just wondering how the team comes up with the target for the average weight time and then also how often it is updated. So through the chair, thank you for that question. Um, so we have been focusing on really establishing our performance measures framework and with that is like reestablishing our true benchmarks uh which will then allow us to get to our targets. So we have released some dashboards uh for council in the last year around call data and our service requests to start reporting outwards. And so now we're moving into our next step. So we are really using 2026 to have proper benchmarks. We are going to be under um undertaking a detailed benchmarking and environmental scan in the coming months uh with comparable city or municipalities across the country as well as some international cities to really look at best practices and to really use that information to form those targets. and we will also be then establishing that outward reporting uh that made it and we'll be making it available to you as well. >> So just through the chair just to kind of add up you know simplify it a little bit you know reality is what we're trying to do is to make sure that we measure actual data. So you know in the run of a year if we do 200,000 potholes and the average time to do a pothole is two days then that's a good standard to start at then of course then your benchmarking adds value to that right so as we do a global benchmark across the system and if we're find other municipalities are doing it in a day and a half then that helps us kind of make sure we kind of tighten it up as opposed to you know previously a few years back there was a little bit of a the actual service standard was kind of a little bit flawed if you will and wasn't reset. So really what we're doing is we need to recalibrate based on what we're actually able to achieve. So that becomes a baseline and then from there you know if you got to be up or down to be simple. >> Okay, that's great. Um happy to hear that. I was I was asking about the um the average like weight time for 311 because that you're talking about service standards across the organization. >> I thought that's what you were asking. Sorry. So you're talking about the gadget. So right now we're down to like the five minute mark. So, >> so everything is trending in the right direction. We've reduced that average speed of answer by 37% year-to- date so far. Um, and more efforts will be made to to reduce that even further and all that will be communicated as well with that ultimate target. >> Okay. But you set us you set a standard that you want to achieve. We do currently have a a target that we established internally just based on previous year's data but we will be establishing firm targets once we have our proper comparables with other municip values and those best practices. >> Okay. And how so that your new standard will come back to to council? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you Carver. >> Yeah. Just quickly, um my colleague councelor Hill was asking about use of co-op students and things like that, but uh I noted a few um months ago Zoran Mandani was actually manning the 311 lines down in New York, and I wondered if you saw any opportunity with a new council coming in for uh a few shifts to be done by potentially the mayor or people around this table. >> Yeah. >> Um I'll let you answer that, but then I have a real question >> through the chair. I would caution that it's my understanding that this table is not eligible for overtime. So if you do want to come in and man the phones, I would be welcome, you know, to train you up and get you there. >> Okay. Thank you. But I do I really do appreciate this the work that they do. I know uh my first job in the federal government was actually on the Canada Loans Call Center and uh you bear the brunt of people's anger when they're waiting, when they're angry about issues. You're the first one. Um and uh so I know um it is a great stepping stone. I got hired as a policy analyst after that in the Canada student loans uh program and um but it it's a great learning experience. Um but you need to have a lot of patience and sympathy and and so I really do want to thank the people that do uh that work. Um, just in terms of the communications campaign, I took a quick look at what was outlined in the recommendations and the intent for it to be done by Q2 2027, but it looks like it's mostly going to be a um electronic campaign. Is it like there'll be posters, that sort of stuff, but is there any way to connect? You know, I'm not a big fan of sending paper out, but you know, people really are not aware of the range of services that 311 offers and even, you know, most of us uh put in a lot of steps over the past couple months and some of the questions I got on the door, you know, would you support a speed study for this street? Like, you don't need a counselor to support a speed study for the street. That's a 311 request. People really had no idea about the extent of services that 311 could have. And I I think often times um it seemed to be people that don't use electronic means of communications that we're unaware like how can we really make that as broad as possible so that there's a better understanding. I'm always surprised too by people come to our offices but they often you know it it's not always the most efficient right because then they don't have a service request number to track and all of that. So like how can we expand that communications activity? >> So through the chair and thank you for that question and thank you to the auditor general for the recommendation around that public awareness campaign. Uh it's coming at a really great opportunity because we have made some important changes not only in the online our online channel by increasing it but also improving it but we're also bringing equal improvements through all our channels. Um so we will be using that campaign uh to communicate to as many clients and residents as we possibly can about all the channels and how best to use them through every possible method that's available to us. We're yes there's a focus with online reporting. Um but we will be using it to the absolute most maximize the effort to reach as many individuals as we possibly can. and to the chair, we'll certainly reach out to each counselor as well so we can give you a little bit of a, you know, placemat for your your weekly newsletters. So, we're obviously working closely with Pimmer to make sure that we do all the channels as Michelle said, but we'll certainly add that as well in terms of, you know, localize, focalize from award perspective. >> Okay. So, is Pimmer leading the campaign then? You guys are leading the campaign. >> It's a shared collaboration. >> Okay. Can I ask city manager a question? Do we have enough staff in Pimmer to be doing the extent of communications that we need to be done? >> Thanks councelor for the question. Um, one of the things that I've had a lot of discussion with um, Pimemer and the folks there is really talking about what you're actually talking about today and that's the storytelling in terms of what we're doing and how we get this message out um, to talk about all of the good things. So, that's part of their work plan. um you know they're looking across the organization uh in terms of how we can tell these stories better and tell them in a way that I think um residents can really connect with and understand in a simplified manner. So the answer to your question is yeah, we're doing okay right now. Thanks. >> Okay, thank you very much. >> Well, that's not really related. >> Okay, I'll say >> so I have a couple comments. First of all, uh huge thank you to 311 staff. We in the Canada North office talk about Michael and Sylvie so much you'd think they worked in the Canad North office. Like we literally talk about you every day. And uh 5 years ago when I first was appointed, Michael was like my assistant because I had no staff and nobody. So I sent every single email I got to Michael. So anyway, huge thanks to 311 staff. That's that's really not what we're talking about here today. They're amazing. Uh I had to call 311 the other day. The person who answered the phone was fabulous. Uh so no complaints about that. So >> the only comments I have are really on the concept of you know honestly serial. So you say we're all about continuous improvement, right? But like my mind goes I would rather massive improvement instead of continuous improvement. I understand how a big organization a government has to continually improve. Right? But I feel like time like technology everything is moving so quickly like I don't know that we're smart to be continuously improving as opposed to making some pretty wholesale changes. Um and funnily enough one of the things you said you know what you were saying about your dentist appointment and your car appointment right that you were like are you a human? I think a massive improvement might be for the first response when someone calls for 311. Would you like to speak to a human because the you know like I think about my life so much of my life is all electronic. Like I just put on my vacuum to wash my floors at home right now. You know I just checked to see my kids in South Korea. I did that in one second here while I was here. Like it's endless. I have a self-driving car. I'm constantly asking Siri to do all my work. I got Muse paying my bills. It's I'm never working with human beings. It's all technology and we have an aging population. Maybe the first response is would you like to speak to a human or would you like to have our endless uh decision tree cuz maybe somebody does want that. I just want to get my thing to parks. But at the same time I'm saying massive improvement. It might be that the number one thing we do as a city for service is that somebody is always an option. you know how you always get to the end and would you like to if you have to speak to an agent press zero that's after you've listened for 10 minutes the first thing maybe is that question so I just I give that to you just to think about um and then the other is my question always about does this have to be internally done like you know you're sick of me I'm sure already it's only the not even at the beginning of the term it's the end of the term okay I can continue Canada's largest tech park has 800 companies out there I feel like there are companies that could help us do this the changes we want to make faster >> to the chair. So that's a great question and the reality is you know if we have the talent internally to do it it's best for us to do it because into our ecosystem. So we have a you know one of our core systems is SAP that's our ERP system. We have over 150 systems that kind of link into that. What we're trying to do is make sure we don't create more sprawl you know call technology sprawl in the system because you know a third party can come in do a real quick pilot proof of concept now we got to create an API we got to do a threat and rest assessment on that now it kind of impacts our firewall now it kind of bleeds into our cyber security uh framework it also then bleeds into can we lift and shift versus the approach we're taking is basically building a framework so now the the structure is in place so now we can just bolt onto our internal structures and systems where there's an opportunity and and a gap. I tell my team all the time, if there's a gap or if there's a delay because we're we're tapped out on resources, well, let's get the third party, let's go do an RFP, get the third party to do that where that makes sense, we do that. But fundamentally, from what we're trying to do in terms of, you know, leveraging our dynamics, leveraging our SAP system to make sure that we do build the right integrations. So it's within our ecosystem because it's not simply you know you can easily go but you can build an app relatively quickly but then it's all the downstream impacts and we also got to consider how does that tie into the business process of some of those 150 plus integration points because the roads pothole might use one system versus the the you know the solid waste might use a different system. So we got to add that layer lens on. So sometimes it sounds like I'm complicating things but it is a complexity of of the structure. So those are the considerations that we always get a look on as opposed to just go get it done and move on because then you're just going to build up and then you know two three years down the road we now had all this bloat and IT systems IT APIs that now we got to scale back. So we want to make sure we're doing a structured approach. >> Okay. I would just also suggest at some point, I don't know if we've ever done this before, but there are people called futurists who come in and actually look at where the future what what the future will be. You know, I was at one recently where they were talking about if you were out in the wilderness and you had a broken arm, you could call a number and a hologram of the doctor would arrive and help you because we have the technology to do that. That's not that's not like really that futurist. we can do that >> just like crystal balls there's lots of things that we can do I think now with technology but but there are people futurists who actually come in and do a full analysis of where we are going and uh I just wonder if we would ever contemplate that because I don't know I think some of our systems 311 being one of them maybe not the way the future is going to be okay I'm going to actually take that one uh chair and um I want to Thank you for that question. And one of the things that we've actually done in terms of having that conversation is kind of doing our pre-planning for strategic plan and we've invited people in um to have those conversations and to get us to think about that. And so when we're looking at it in terms of the organization, we're looking at okay, where are things going to be? Not necessarily during the period of, you know, this term or the next term, but what does it look like 10 years down the road? what does it look like 30 years down the road? You know, envisioning that ourselves, but also leveraging those people to talk to us about that, encouraging that conversation. So, we're doing exactly what you're saying in terms of okay, you know, how are we going to get there, right? Technology plays a big big piece in all of that because um that's that's where we're going to go and we look at, you know, I'm going to say all of the resources that we have available to us. that is one of the levers that we have to help us. Okay, I'm glad to hear that we're looking at that. Okay. Well, thank you very much. This is a really important audit. I mean, they all were, but thank you all very much. Um, so our recommendation is simply that the audit committee receive the audit report and recommend that council consider and approve the recommendations. Is that carried? >> Carried. So, we don't have any inc camera items. Uh, notices of motion. No inquiries. No other business. No. And so, uh, we are adjourned and our next meeting is to be determined. So, we'll get back to you on that date. Uh, have a great rest of your day everyone. Thank you.