Transcript: Tax Levy and Surplus Approved - Finance Committee - April 23, 2026 | Summary 507

Good evening. It is the finance committee meeting of April 23rd and I would like to call the meeting to order. We will start as we always do by reading our land acknowledgement. Grimby is situated on treaty land. This land is steeped in the rich history of the first nations such as the Hadawender, the Hodenosane and the Inishab including the Missosagas of the Credit First Nation. There are many First Nations, Matei and Inuit people from across Turtle Island that live and work in Niagara today. The regional municipality of Niagara and the town of Grimsby stand with all indigenous people, past and present, in promoting the wise stewardship of the lands on which we live. The third item on our agenda is disclosures of interest. And at this time, I would ask our committee members if anyone has any disclosures of pecuniary or non-puniary interest to declare and anyone online? No. Thank you. Then we'll move to item four, which is the approval of the agenda. If I could have a mover and seconder to approve the agenda. Councelor How and Councelor Vardy. So resolved that the agenda for April 23rd, 2026 of the finance committee meeting be approved. By show of hands, all those in favor, please. Thank you. That is passed. Item five on our agenda is the receipt of previous minutes. Could I have a mover and a seconder to receive the previous minutes? Councelor Vardy and councelor Christristani. So resolved that the following meeting minutes be received. The finance committee meeting of March 26, 2026 and the Grimy Economic Development Advisory Committee of April 2nd, 2026. By show of hands, all those in favor, please. And there are none opposed. Thank you. That is carried. Do we have anybody online? Okay. Uh just to our committee member who is online um because we can't see you online I guess um when I when we vote I will just circle back to you and ask you what your vote is um Paul just to let you know item six raise my hand. Thank you. Very good. Tonight we have with us uh representatives from our GDAC committee and councelor Frank who is the chair of GDAC will now present their year-end report. Uh welcome here. Thank you madam chair. Uh as you know council decided that each of the committees standing committees and as well as the advisory committee should come to council with a update of their previous year and term and also with some suggestions as to how we move forward. So this I got about 10 slides here. Try and keep it simple. If there's any questions, we will we'll we'll be welcome to to reply to them. So the introduction uh GDAC for those who don't know was formed in 1992. So it goes back quite far. Uh and I don't I don't think it was been really as active as it has been over the past number of years, especially this past term. Uh in 1993 they changed the name to Gunsby Economic Development Advisory Committee which is a mouthful in itself which we call GC of course and the mandate from the terms of reference which council gave was that it was created to advise council on and economic development matters and promote the economic development in Grimby which we have been true to forum to do and have done over the past term. It is also u mandated that we focus on business attraction uh which is a given uh growth of the businesses we have and to retain the businesses that we already have in town and to also fi foster a vibrant business envir environment in Grimby to attract more uh businesses to come here to create more taxes of course and more jobs so on so forth. So our terms of reference um the initiatives was to review the structure and resources allocated to economic development and identify the opportunities for enhancement. That was one of the reference initiatives. Number two was to support the growth of existing businesses by pro thank you for moving the slide sorry by providing more mechanisms to communicate with the town uh and also to develop and implement a marketing strategy which we've done and investigate the potential for town participation in trade missions. Now trade missions is a tricky one because most of trade missions in this region is done through the region. uh we haven't participated in any of those for cost per cost reasons and and so on so forth and and resource reasons. So we haven't done too many of them even though that's part of the the mandate. Uh we also did support programs and be informative and incentivize uh for entrepreneurs and small businesses to encourage new ventures in the town. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that. And that also includes trying to get startups to come out and open their businesses along the uh business business corridors. So to give you an idea who is on our GDAC committee, u there's two council representatives. There's myself and councelor Barazzi. Uh there's four community business representatives and and it's it's for these are these are voting rep these are voting representatives and four was the maximum that council suggested back when. Uh so we have Kamiso, we have uh we had 40 creek, we had uh Simcor and we had uh who's the third one? Oh yeah, we had the marketing representative. So those were the four represent the voting members and we also had a number of non- voting liaison members on the committee uh who helped us understand what was going on in the business community give us advice uh and keep us up to date on on on things that matter. Um so it was made up of the manager of economic development which is Frank uh our planning and development director which is Kirsten who's here. Uh we had a representative from the chamber of commerce the downtown BIA the employment help centerby power and the [ __ ] gateway. So they represented various service organizations across the community like tourism uh employment uh and so on and so forth. So we tried to get a cross-section of of expertise and intelligence from the from the community and we always most of them attended on a regular basis but and they were very uh informative as to what we were doing and and and and to advise us as to what's going on in the in the uh in the uh community at large. Okay. So, our accomplishments uh under promotion, we certainly I think did a pretty good job of promoting Grimby as a destination uh for business destination and as well as a tourist destination. We launched a business ambassador program this this past term which was made up of 10 business ambassadors from various types of industries all international in their scope. Uh and they have been very active and have been very productive actually in in in a number of in number of areas which which is attracting has been attracting some business to the community. Uh we also promoted our tourism strategy. Uh so and we uh have been issuing annual reports and you'll get this one soon as well. This is the one for 2025. So it's this is just the mockup version. You'll get the real version soon. So we continue to enhance our community connections uh business networking sponsored events some of which you attended. uh we improved our partnerships with many of the organizations and we uh certainly promoted stakeholdering stakeholder management. Uh we did things like ribbon cutting. Uh we do roundts uh we did networking sessions. Uh we engaged with the Niagara Institute of uh Industrial Association and with the Niagara region and with various government departments. So we were connecting with all of the various organizations in the community and outside the community within the region to u to help us you know meet our goals basically. Um we work closely with a lot of businesses. We launched a cons concier program and the concier program was actually to help businesses understand how they could work with government with municipality and to put them in touch with people whom they might need to be in touch with to help them uh grow their business and cut the red tape and cut the red tape and cut the red tape. Of course, we mustn't forget the red tape. That's that's a big one. uh we did nearly I think 30 site visits this year to various businesses in the community and we were in we we were able to invest get investment attraction of up to 28 different businesses so it's been very a very productive uh year oh sorry that's for the past four years past four years for the past term so on collaboration side uh we had various delegations come to town we've had a group from Philippines We had a Agra tech group from China who was interested in best investing in Grimby. We had a large international sports organization that wanted to set up a uh big sports park in Grimby. These are ongoing of course. Uh we also hosted a number of events um uh as some of you some of you attended the energy conference for example um the mayor's breakfast the the uh uh the gala accepted u we also developed an industry liaison task force and that worked very well for us as well uh did I miss anything Frank and there's a couple photos of everybody of their Sunday bests with their bow ties and looking nice. And there's a second one. That second picture is actually a photo of our ambassadors. That was at the ambassador inauguration event we had at Giza. So, okay. under future opportunities. We we certainly have had our challenges over the past term, over the past year in moving some of our our projects and some of our initiatives forward. So, we've come up with a few opportunities that we could look at to make it better for next term and that is update the terms of reference for flexibility to add more members to the committee. Um, right now we have four uh they're busy executives. Sometimes they can show up, sometimes they can't. They come from a variety of of businesses. I think we need to look at how we can add a couple of new ones or extra ones to that. Uh then there's there's the uh to increase the number of voting members. Um that would help. I think that if we were reporting directly to council, it would actually speed up some of the decision-m process. Right now, as you know, we have standing committees and we have advisory committees. The advisory committee reports into the standing committee. our minutes go to the standing committee and the standing committee goes to council. It's kind of like a red tape situation. So some things just don't get up to council fast enough. It could be up to two months sometimes. So I think that if we were reporting directly to council, it would it would help. So these are these are uh suggested changes we should make uh to strengthen the role of economic development in the planning and development world. And you know now that we've uh taken the ADO the economic development officer and we put that position under planning and development that has really really helped. Uh but I think we need to expand that role a little bit within within uh within our uh within our within the corporation here. Uh in terms of u attendance we have a lot of members who sometimes can't show up at meetings. So, we'd like to put an attendance accountability in our in our um um u terms of reference, you know, our terms of reference, I guess. Yeah. So, that if we if they're missing a lot of meetings, then we take them out. I mean, because they're not they're of no value to us if that's the case. So, those are some of the suggestions that we're suggesting under procedures and they're very specific. under opportunities. Um I think we need to review the economic development budget which has been very limited and very small. Uh we need we don't have a lot of resources. We have an economic development manager and most of the time we're stealing resources from the rest of the town to get things done. And and I know you're all aware of that because we've had this discussion before at council and I we've had the discussion when we when we came when when our minutes came to finance for discussion. We we couldn't get things done as fast as we would like to get them done or as efficiently as we could get them done because we didn't have the resources to do it. Be it money or be it people. So we need to look at that. Uh we want to continue the support of the ambassador program. It's proven to be quite effective. Um it doesn't cost the town anything. It's free. These guys, these people who are on there are very committed to the town. uh and they have shown that in many many ways because they've brought a lot of business to town and they've given us a lot of opportunities to bring more business to town going forward and a lot of these things are take time. So um so and they've only been in place for what about a year? Yes, about a year. So we want to continue that program. We'd like to expand the some other programs like partnerships uh with the BIA for example uh with the Niagara Institute or the Industrial Association, the chamber and there's a whole host of other service organizations I think we should probably look at expanding uh our communication with. Uh we have uh we want to publish more quarterly economic development reports so that the council and the public and staff have better idea of what we're doing and how we're doing it. And attached to that we'd like to we'd like to incorporate more return on on investment uh formulas to show you that you know what we're doing in terms of uh attracting business but also how is the tax attracts the bottom line. And of course, the key thing with industrial development is we want to get more taxes out of economic development so we can take less taxes from the from the residents. That's that's the long-term goal. Uh we want to develop some clear direction on economic development priorities and actions. And we want to advance our tourism strategy and enhance the economic development strategy. As you know, we introduced an tourism strategy this year, but there was no money in the budget for us to move it forward. So we are doing a few things uh without without money uh with the few few resources we have. But I think we need to look at people and and maybe a better budget next year to move those things forward because you know Whimsy does have a lot to offer in terms of economic development. And last but not least um just to give you an idea what we have been able to accomplish this year. uh we have introduced 1 billion square ft of new industrial development which is coming online over the next couple of years. This these these are already established. They're committed uh that the plan the action the the applications are in place plans in place in some case uh that equals about $370 million of investment in Grimby. Just think about that for a sec. Small Grimby $370 million investment. I don't think there's another municipality in the region that can boast that. It will allow us to collect about $1.4 million in property taxes over the over once once all these once all these projects are in place and up and running. And most importantly, it'll create about 2,000 jobs. And I think we're on the low side even on that. Those 2,000 jobs will bring more people to town, more people buying houses in town, more people doing, you know, creating more commerce in town. So those are the accomplishments that we can claim. Um these are the ones that are on the table that we know we're going to get, but there are others which aren't in here. I mean there we we there's there's still more on the table that we can look at and we will continue to develop which will go beyond uh this term obviously. So there it is. Um short and sweet. I'll answer any questions you may have and we have Frank and we have Kirsten here to pitch in as well. Over to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I will turn this over to the committee members and ask if anyone has any questions for our delegates. Go ahead, councelor Vy. Well, I would just like to acknowledge the incredible work that uh that you and your team have done. Um I because I know you so well. I know how hard you work at this and this has been a full-time job uh for you uh Reg Freak and uh um uh I I I know how hard that you've pushed this and um how you've made this successful uh along with your your colleague there. Um so just want to say kudos to you. Thank you very much and uh the town really should appreciate what you've done. Thank you. Any other committee members have questions? Um, I have a few then I always go last and that's okay. Um, I'd like to give everybody a chance first. You you under suggestions on things that could be improved. You talk about in the future perhaps having the committee go directly to council. Um, could you give us some examples of things you ran into during this last term where you felt matters were slowed down by having to report first to a standing committee and then go to council? Could you give us some concrete examples? I'll give you some general ones. Uh, as you know, everything everything at the end of the day, everything gets has to be passed by council. Whatever whatever we do, everything comes up to council gets passed. There was a number of items that uh for I'll take the gala for example. The gala got held up for nearly two months because we couldn't finally get things up to council for approval. So we had to wait and time was not on our side. We had so many moving parts in that particular project and I just picked that one but there's there's others but there's one. And we had facilities we had to deal with. We had, you know, uh, caterers. We had marketing. We had to sell tickets. But we couldn't do any of that until it was approved by council. But first, we had that we had to have that discussion at the committee level and get our ducks in a row. Then it had to come up to finance so you could have a look at it and ask your questions and so on and so forth. And you then had to pass those minutes. And then eventually you got the council. But in that time, there's very little we could do to move that needle forward. And that's the type of thing that I'm talking about. That's one example. And maybe you have another one in term it is related to a project. But but there's projects we worked on that where we wanted to move them forward because an investor came to town, wanted to put shovels in the ground, get applications passed, and so on and so forth. So once again, it had to go through that same long process. And I come from a world where things need to get when things need to get done, you find a shortest path. And this is not the shortest path. And it's not it's no different from the standing committees either. The standing committees when you make decisions to do things at the standing committee, you then have to wait a month or whatever it takes or two weeks to get a decision from council to make things go forward. So those are kind of the challenges we had. And I think that if we could just find a faster way to get things moving and get council to approve them, then I think that we would all be better off for it. And especially our investors who have put the money into the into the community, they could move things ahead. So, um I it's a long-winded way, but I mean I hopefully that makes sense. My my next question um is to ask you if you could give us some examples and I'll call them of wins. wins or successes that have come about because of the ambassador program. Okay, first of all, the ambassador program has been in place for a year, not even a year. We have 10 ambassadors. of those 10 ambassadors right now there are seven of them I think seven of them that have come forward with projects that are not quite to the point of where they're going to be they're going to actually happen uh for example we have one and I mentioned it earlier uh we have a large Chinese consortium that came to town through one of our ambassadors who wants to invest in Grimby in agrch it's it's it's the the the technology they bring to the table and the future of this particular technology is is doesn't exist anywhere in anywhere that I know of in the world for that matter except for the for in China I guess right so it would it would for example help uh agriculture increase their yield on crops by up to 40%. So they we've had a number of meetings with them and that was through an ambassador. So that comes to fruition. They will set up shop in Grimby and it will create a whole industry in itself just just and industry. Uh we bracken with twinning. Then there's you know then there's of course one of the other ambassadors who was very instrumental in bringing the twinning back to the table. the twinning of the two Grimbies and he is a uh international insurance broker for the food industry and beverage industry and the reason why he was involved in the twinning is because one of his largest clients resides in Grimby England and they have an interest in doing something here in Grimby here. So these are I can't say names because we're under NDAs and a lot of these things and you understand what that means. So there's two ambassadors there. Um Fioranka and then we must yeah we must Fiora Fior Ivankaka who is who's been working with us as an ambassador and he's bringing the industrial park to the service road. He's also a resident here in Grimby as well. Uh so I got I got this little be in my ear here. He's bringing ATCO to town. Atco is one of the largest companies of it. It's $25 billion Canadian company who looked elsewhere other than Grimby to set up shop, but he's brought them to Grimby. They're going to be grounded in Grim. As a matter of fact, we'll probably have an opening in this case for Atco maybe May or June in May or June will have a ribbon cutting. Uh and that that particular company if they like Grimby and they like what they see here and if they like what we do for them here, they will expand their business beyond what they're planning to do already. So we we know that and we because we met with the senior the senior VP. So there's a couple of examples. There are others but there's a couple. You asked for a couple and there's a few of them. Very good. Thank you. And my last question has to do with your very last slide that you had up talking about the industrial momentum um that is coming and and I know you say by 2030 a and so I'm going to ask you to speak in general terms but um you note the 1.1 million uh square feet with the new industrial development and I think most of us know the location and the project that we're talking about. Um there's more than one. Um that's great. Um even the top two. Can can you share with us when you expect shovels in the ground? Have they shared when they expect that they will start construction? Uh you want to speak to that? Yeah. You know you know the dates better than I do. So, one of the major investor uh 400,000 square feet in total will has already had shovels in the ground and we're having an official opening in May. That's atco for 122,000 square ft, 135 employees. Uh the next one that we're working on right now is for uh I believe it's 140,000 square feet. Um that's the building just facing the South Service Road. We're going to have an official groundbreaking ceremony sometime in June. Uh so that's a big one. Uh that's a couple hundred that's close to 300,000 ft. We have another 100,000 square feet that's going to go in that Grimby Innovation Park. Now just understand that in the past that was an underutilized industrial area with a lot of outside storage and everything else. Everything is under now under uh a building and uh creating quite a few jobs there. The second other major important development that will be taking place site plan agreement has been reached. They haven't signed it yet. Ania. Yeah. So, uh, but, um, that's 650,000 square feet, three buildings. However, uh, they're holding off until we resolve this issue with what's happening right now. I don't know if council is aware of it but let me just say that MTO is sort of wants to expand the queen a and has been u saying that they wish to undertake an extensive environmental uh um an EA process for the next 5 years. That has put everybody on uh on hold until we get that resolved. And I just saw an email from Kristen that we're meeting with MTO in the next little while to see how we can move that along. They basically said the first building which is about 250,000 ft facing the South Service Road that's primary uh parcel of uh parcel they want to start with that building because it's AAA and they've already got some tenants to occupy that space but MTO is basically saying stop. We have to review all the CA and everything else. So, but you can do building number two and number three. Uh, but as you can appreciate from an investor perspective, bless you. You want to see the first building up and that's what that's why that's delayed. But we hope that between now and then we'll we'll see that uh uh groundbreaking hopefully next year. So, that covers the 1.4 million, but it doesn't cover what we're still working on. which is a lot of things. Oh, yeah. Which is quite a few. So, so, so Grimby's future looks bright in the economic development arena. Um, and so, um, hopefully we will have we'll continue the momentum that we had this term into next term. So, um, because there's still a lot of opportunities out there. You know, I will say that, you know, we don't have all the land in the world to work with, but uh you know, and Frank is probably tired of hearing me say this, we don't have to always go out. We can also go up. We don't have we can we can go up with with the types of businesses that are coming into into being like high-tech, you know, more white collar type of businesses where we can build up rather than out. So, you know, that's another strategy we probably will write into our next into our next uh plans. But anyway, the opportunities are great. I think we've done a great job this year and I hopefully you agree and I've got to I've got to commend uh Kirsten and her team and I got to commend my colleague here on my right because I mean uh he's at this thing day and night. You got you got to give them a lot of credit and you got to give your team a lot of credit, Kristen, because you you have been very very and I I said this last night at the planning meeting and I'll say it again. Uh you have a very good team and they seem to have a really seem to be getting a really strong focus on what economic development is all about and where it's going and how important it is to the town. So, thank you for that. Anyway, hopefully that answers your questions. That did. Thank you very much. Um any further questions? Yeah. Well, it's just a uh just a comment if I may. I I'm quite sympathetic to uh having to report to a standing committee who then reports to a um reports to council. As chair of the green committee, um it never feeds up into the public during a council meeting all the great things that the green committee has done basically. And when the the chair of the uh communities um committee is giving their report, the the the green accomplishments or activities never get mentioned. So it it's like they they get buried and and for that reason it it seems like we're not doing anything when we've actually, you know, we're we're actually very active and and doing some some great things, you know, including a tree giveaway. uh that's that's coming up, but I bet none of you ever have heard of it. So, um I I just think that for that reason um advisory committees like writ large reporting to standing committees that then report is is is a rather kind of bureaucratic and it it doesn't always um feed the public the information that you wish they had. Would you have if I might add to that madam chair just we're running out of time and we're getting a bit off topic here. You know advisory committees should be considered like consultants because that's what that they're called advisory committees. GDAC is an advisory committee like green like the green. We're free. It's a free consultancy is what you're getting with advisory committees. We have experts there that have but it's it's not just getting up to the top and getting out to the community as fast as we would like it to. I'll leave it like that and and councelor Vardy is absolutely correct and again once again thank you for hearing us. Well, thank you for coming this evening and sharing all those good things that are happening in the area of economic development. Um we've already had a mover in a second to receive the delegations. Did I did not ah then I need to cover that off. Thank you councelor Vardy. Councelor Chris Angie will second that. Thank you. And then resolve that the delegation from GAC regarding their end of term presentation be received for information. All those in favor by a show of hands please and member deare. Thank you. That motion is carried. Thank you very much for coming to our delegates. The the next item on our agenda is number seven, which are our consent reports, and we have none. So, we'll move on to item eight and our discussion reports 8.1. If I could have a mover and a seconder to get our finance report 26-11, which is about the 2026 tax levy and tax rates on the floor for discussion, please. Councelor Candi has so moved and councelor How has seconded. Thank you. So, I will turn it over to you, Mr. Del Monaco. Thank you and good evening. Uh the purpose of this report is to approve the tax rates for 2026 per the attached schedules based on the approved 2026 consolidated budget. Uh in November, the 2026 budget was adopted by the town establishing the levy requirements for 2026 and Niagara region subsequently approved their 2026 budget as well. Niagara region also approved the tax ratios that are shown in schedule A. Uh they remain unchanged. The residential tax ratio is 1. The commercial tax ratio is 1.73 times the residential ratio and the industrial ratio is 2.63 times the residential ratio. Uh there are also other ratios for other property types. Uh the other appendices of the report outline the tax rates as approved by each taxing jurisdiction. Uh the town issues tax bills on behalf of the region and the school boards. The interimm bills were already issued with due dates of March 6th and May 1st and the final tax bills will soon be issued with due dates of August 7th and October 2nd. On uh the table on page four of the report shows the year-over-year tax difference by levy category. For 2026, the town has changed the way it builds for wastewater. The town approved a move to a fully rate based model in line with other municipalities and in doing so the costs for wastewater will be recovered entirely through the water bills uh based on factors such as water meter size and water consumption. So, uh, the total taxes for regional education and town general services would be $6,048 for the average residential property assessed at 442,000 for those properties connected to the wastewater system. That's actually a $146 reduction from 2025, which is due to shifting the remaining wastewater levy off the tax bills and onto the water bills. An average assessed property without wastewater will see a tax increase of $281 compared to last year. Actual amounts owing will vary depending on property type and property assessment values. And just one final note, the approved tax rates in schedule G of the report reflect the Grimby downtown BIA budget increase that was recently approved. Thank you. Any questions from committee members? Councelor H. Um through you chair um Tony V and we touched upon this earlier in the in a conversation but the there was a very large uh uptick on um queries on the water bills. um and has most of that uh been able to get out to the public and that they probably understand a little bit better and that we're not going to the Cayman's. Yes. Through the chair. Yeah. Um the the level of um questions does seem to have subsided recently now that people have had a chance to review their bills and ask questions. Um, we did also post some updated information on our on our website and on Lex Talk Ginsby to help provide uh the rate payers with some additional details on what's changed, why it's changed, and the impacts that they may have. Uh, the property um, sorry, the the rate calculator remains on the Let's Talk Grimsby page so people can estimate the impact based on their usage in their meter size. Thank you. just as a a bit of a followup. Um I know the the amount of questions that were flowing around out there. Uh and it seemed that and the couple people that got back to me uh that once they got talking or or were directed the answers were very clear to them and and they understood it and therefore I'm going to say thank you to your department uh for a lot of hard work and a lot of patience but uh congratulations. Any other questions from committee members? I um I'm going to ask Mr. Delmico. Um do we have you ever are there any rumors? Maybe I'll phrase it that way. I don't know how else to ask it about EMPAC perhaps finally updating their assessment. Do we have any sense of where EMPAC is going? Thank you. Yeah, that's a good question. Unfortunately, no, we don't have an indication of of when that might be happening. We do meet with them um about once a quarter and um the question always comes up, but the answer is always the same without updated uh timelines or anything like that. Thank you. I I yeah I I really don't know what's holding it up besides the province of Ontario, I guess. But yeah, I I've I sadly think that, you know, the the balance between properties is getting more and more out of whack the longer we go. And um yeah, I look forward to the next one even though it'll come with a lot of questions and appeals, but still it would be good to get it updated. Um anyway, any further questions or comments from committee members? Then if there are none, the motion on the floor is resolve that report finance 26-11, the 2026 tax levy and tax rates dated April 23rd, 2026 be received. And bear with me, folks, there's eight parts to this resolution. one that the finance committee recommends that council adopt the 2026 tax ratios and the subclass reductions as outlined in schedule A in accordance with regional bylaw 2026-15 and two that the town of Grimby general tax rates as outlined in schedule B be approved and three that the region of Niagra general tax rates as outlined in schedule C be adopted in accordance with regional bylaw 2026-16 and four that the region of Niagara waste management tax rates as outlined in schedule D be adopted in accordance with regional bylaw 2026-16 and five that the region of Niagara transit tax rates as outlined in schedule E be adopted in accordance with regional bylaw 2026-16 and six that the education tax rates as outlined in schedule F be adopted in accordance with Ontario regulation 400/98 and seven that the GR Grimby downtown business improvement area rates as outlined in schedule G be approved. And finally, number eight, that the 2026 tax rates and tax levy bylaw attached as schedule H be approved, including the information outlined in schedules A through G. And I sure hope you like all those parts of it and don't want to amend anything. So by a show of hands, please all those in favor. No, we cannot split them up. And member de Mayare hand is up as well. So that is carried. Thank you. That was a mouthful. Um we'll now move on to the next committee re the next report to us which is finance report 26-12 on the 2025 year end results and the transfers to reserves. If I could have a mover in a second or to get this on the floor, please councelor Gangi, councelor Vardy. Thank you. And over to you, Mr. Delbaro. Thank you. The purpose of this report is to provide the committee with an update on the 2025 year-end financial results and approve the year-end dispositions to and from reserves. Overall, we came in very close to budget with a 233,000 surplus overall. That includes a $726,000 surplus related to the tax supported operating budget. $380,000 of that is related to the building department. Uh per legislation, that surplus needs to be retained by the building department. So that surplus will be transferred to the building department reserve. On the rate side of things, we're reporting a 720 sorry, $792,000 deficit for wastewater and a $300,000 surplus for water. In terms of significant variances, uh the building surplus is related to a couple factors. One is there were three large permit applications valued at over 450,000 in total. One in the downtown, one on Main Street, and one on the service road. Uh the second factor is that the 2025 building department budget also included a $438,000 transfer from reserves to supplement their revenues. So despite those three large permits, without that reserve infusion, the building surplus of $381,000 would have actually been a deficit of 57,000. So I just wanted to provide that context. The uh corporate surplus of $500,000 was driven by a realized gain from our one Fund investment holdings. In 2024, we began investing a small portion of our portfolio with the One Fund, which invests in Canadian equities, and the Canadian equity markets advanced considerably. In 2025, we liquidated a portion of those holdings in Q4, and that resulted in an investment gain. Offsetting that was legal fees incurred. uh those were the primary factor offsetting that corporate surplus. The public works negative variance uh that was in case you're not aware that was um some numbers there were restated after they were published. You might want to check the report but the public works negative variance it's driven the overall variance remains the same but the differences are a bit different. It's it's driven by a few different factors. There was a $269,000 deficit related to contracted services and material expenses. That's made up of $150,000 in higher than budgeted roads and sidewalk maintenance costs and a materials overage of 120,000 related to winter control costs for things like salt, sand, and deicing materials. There was also higher fleet repair costs in public works which contributed to an overage of 155,000. Community services had a surplus in staffing costs related to vacant positions which was the main driver of their $440,000 surplus. And so like I mentioned overall that's a 726,000 surplus with respect to the taxup supported operating budget. On the rate side the water surplus is related to higher than budgeted revenues along with some savings from vacant positions. While on the wastewater side, we experienced a 792,000 deficit related to lower than budgeted revenues along with our share of regional treatment costs being $389,000 higher than anticipated. Uh those deficits are offset somewhat by savings in vacant positions. These surpluses and deficits are recommended to be transferred to and from reserves as outlined in appendix C of the report. That being $381,000 to the building reserve, $25,000 to the library strategic priorities reserve and the remaining tax operating surplus of 319,000 to the tax stabilization and contingency reserve with 100,000 of that earmarked for the 2026 intake of the community development grant program. The water surplus is being directed to the water contingency reserve and the wastewater deficit is being drawn from the wastewater contingency reserve. Thank you. There's questions. Questions from committee members. I do have one question. Go ahead. I'm woken up. Yes, I'm here. Um, I just want to know on the corporate, um, I see that the the question was the, uh, favorable results were partly offset by $545,000 plus in legal fee coverages, and I just wonder what they were. Yeah, thank you. The question was regarding the legal fees. Um so um that's primarily related to the biodigestertor and I believe there's going to be an update coming to council. So um that's pretty much all I'll say about that. Thank you. Any further questions? U member de mayor. So this was a passing of the wild uh digtor and the legal battle that went on there I assume. Or is this regarding the sale of it? No, the sale took place in 2019. I I I know the date exactly. It's ingrained in my brain from having negotiated it. So, no, this has nothing to do with the sale that took place quite a while ago. So, these are legal fees regarding some sort of objections after the sale. Yeah. Through the chair. It's uh it is a close session matter so we can't really go into too many details about that unfortunately. I think it would be fair to say and we can say it publicly. It's certainly been been um noted publicly for years, but perhaps member Deare um isn't aware of it, but the town is is suing uh certain defendants um over matters in the biodigtor and that um lawsuit continues. What What is the amount of lawsuit? Uh I believe that's public information so we can speak to it. Initially the um lawsuit was um asking for $18 million. I believe it has since been reduced to a number less than that. Let's say somewhere around 10 million I think. So, this sounds like some sort of protracted uh legal dispute uh that may take an um more months to resolve maybe next year as well. No timeline on resolution expected. Well, those are matters for close session for council um and not things we can speak about publicly yet. All right. Well, just wanted to know. Thanks. Thank you. Any other questions from committee members? I I have a few. So, sorry to put you on the spot there, Mr. Dan Monaco. Um when I see the schedules that um project where our reserves are going to be in the future, the two that worry me, I will say probably worry you too. I know um is wastewater especially with the big uh turnaround in the balance this year as well. Um and the second one I guess is the one that the project we keep I'll say procrastinating a bit on but still remains in the short term on our capital project list and that's fire station 3 or whatever may come of that a and both those reserves are very small compared to the costs that we see ahead of us. Um, so I I guess my question really is when we take the surplus and the recommendation is to put it into a levy contingency and stabilization fund, how do we help these other two reserves? And I guess and that's why I'm saying I'm sure you thought about that, but why did you decide on the levy stabilization one rather than allocating more of the surplus to some of these other reserves where we know they're going into the negative or they're very very small? Yeah, thank you. Um yeah, we decided to allocate that to the contingency reserve because um per the reserve policy, our target balance for that reserve is 10 to 15% of operating gross operating uh expenses and the reserve was projected to be just below that that 10% level. Um and uh the reason for that is because we are, if you recall, we're projecting to use um use the contingency reserve to phase in the uh premiums for the WSIP that we approved. So, uh that was pushing it below that 10% level. So, we thought this would be a good opportunity to bring that back up to within that reserve threshold. Um and um I think it's important to make sure that we have those adequate contingency reserves in place before we turn our attention to those other more longer term reserves which um which are important as well. But it um I think it'd be more appropriate to top up that emergency reserve first. Thank you. Just wanted to uh hear out loud sort of your rationale on all of that. Thank you. Um and we know with the WSIB with the recent announcement as well that it is possible that claims um can go to WSIB even for those people who are working beyond age 65 and so on. So um we know that is um it's better that we're now part of a being a schedule one employer rather than schedule two, but we know it still comes with costs and um and claims too. So, and we know the premiums are quite large as well. So, thank you. Any questions from any other members on um on the uh recommendations that have come forward? Then if there are no further questions, the resolution is resolved that report finance 26-12 the 2025 year-end results and reserve transfers dated April 23rd, 2026 be received and one that the finance committee recommends that the 2025 surplus and deficit listed below be transferred to and from reserves as outlined in schedule C. And I will read the specifics. $726,497 in the operational levy, $792,823 deficit in wastewater, and $300,156 surplus in water. And that the finance committee recommends to council that they approve 100,000 of the year-end surplus as a budget amendment to fund the 2026 2027 Grimsby Community Development Grant Program. All those in favor by a show of hands, please. Yes. And member de Mayor, thank you. That motion is carried. Then item number nine on our agenda is correspondence and there is none this evening. Um item 10 is other business. And I will ask the committee members if anyone has any other business. and then um I'll ask our clerk to just share uh something going forward on our end of term presentation. But anything from any committee members questions, comments, suggestions? I don't see any. So, I'll turn the floor over to our clerk to uh share how we're going to be handling the end of term presentation. Thank you, chair. Uh, okay. So, tonight we received an end of term presentation from the economic development advisory committee. That one is a little bit more involved than the one that finance and other standing committees are doing, but I think it gives a good example and helps this make a little bit more sense. Uh, but I'll explain the slight differences between them. So, the main difference is that there actually is not going to be a slideshow presentation uh the way that councelor Frank gave one tonight. It will actually just be happening during the chair's report section of the July council meeting. So, uh, councelor Devolia as chair of finance will give chair's report as she normally does, but that will include the year or the end of term presentation, not presentation, but verbal presentation. Uh so what the committee needs to provide is the list of accomplishments from the term and the list of future opportunities from the term. So that's what the GDAC members did. They provided that to the clerk's department staff and then we worked with uh councelor Frank and Frank as well as the staff leaison to put together the list that was shown on the screen and in the presentation of the future opportunities and the accomplishments. So what is asked of the members of the finance committee is to prepare their own individual lists of future opportunities for a future finance committee in the next term as well as the accomplishments of this finance committee from this term and to give that to the clerk's department myself or or Victoria or or Katie and then we will work with counselor Dvoli to put together that final version of a of a script, I guess you could call it, for the chair's report. And I'm happy to answer questions. So, we won't be actually discussing these things at a committee level. We'll just be making submissions to the clerk's department. We will be present, sorry, I missed that part. Thank you for catching that. We will be presenting a um a a not a final draft but a finalized presentable draft to this committee at our last meeting in June. And so that'll be a time for comment and question, but we will be working with you as the as the chair directly. That'll be the last time for comment from all members of what it will sound like. Uh, and then we will put those final comments into a version for July for council. Okay, let me just repeat to make sure um I have it straight. Uh, so we see what you want from us. It'll be up the to the committee members to submit to the clerk's department, you know, the top three accomplishments they saw and the top three future opportunities. Um we will not be discussing it in May but a draft will then be put together for our June meeting and everybody will have further input at the June meeting about the draft and then it'll go in July and each of the chairs of those committees will be presenting verbally. Yes. Um these six points I'll say councelor Vardy had her hand up first and then councelor H. um finance did an excellent report recently. So I I think most of the work is already done. We just we just need to pull pull from that. Um and and I I I guess I'm going to put it on you uh for for the future opportunities and details. Um, I'm going to leave it to the accountants because I think you're far better placed to identify what those are um than maybe what you know, but just as a general comment, well, two comments. One, I think, um, the committee working along with staff have really strengthened what the town has to offer. sort of the been it's been a great collaboration and I think I think the town has really benefited from from the work that's that's been done here. Um and um I'll just make a suggestion that you include in the presentation when you're giving it because I assume you'll give it um that um you acknowledge the people on the committee and it's something that I did on the green committee. So everyone that had worked from you know the the past four years uh were mentioned as contributors to the success of of that committee. So those are just the two comments that I'd make before I give the floor to councelor how um I'm going to say that under future opportunities and details it's not just about I'll say future analyses and reports. Um you'll notice from the ecdev uh presentation it's even you know they talked about things like missed meetings or uh the number of missed meetings and they had like procedural things as well right so uh for sure um I think there's still lots of things to think about in terms of future opportunity and details and so please don't feel like well I'm not sure what the next step is for a finance committee in terms of analyses and things like that because it could your ideas might be things as to how we did it or how we organized it or or what we did or didn't do, right? Um I knowing some of our lay members, you know, there were some matters they never got to address because council had issues with closed versus open information and things like that. And so that would be the opportunity that is their opportunity to bring those sorts of matters forward too. Um, so I think there is room for every committee member to think of future opportunities as well or things that they think could be fixed. There's always something that can be fixed. Councelor How, go ahead. Uh, and to Noah the clerk, um, are you going to email that copy to yours truly? At the very least, we definitely can do that. Y that's no problem. Thank you. Thank you. And what's the time frame of floor time or mic time for the chair at the final presentation? So, it's the same as the chair's reports, which to my understanding is five minutes with room for extension at the discretion of uh the mayor or whoever is serving as chair. Five minutes. I'm going to say that's a tough one because we're going to have it in because we have our June finance meeting. We have to summarize that in those same five minutes and then give these as well. So, boy oh boy, I'm going to practice talking really fast. Counselor Christie, go ahead. Thank you, chair. I I am a little disappointed that we're we're not going to do some slides because I think visuals this is being presented to the residents too short of to show um the value of resident committees. And I think the visual will really drive home. Plus, it would keep delight on track for timing. Um, but I think I think the visual is important for residents watching. So, I think that's something we should consider. So, part of getting a a finalized script. I use air quotes for script, but whatever you'd like to call that, um, is for the purpose of putting on the agenda specifically. Uh so that's not a visual component to the presentation but at the very least the words will be captured and you know verbatim right or you know close to whatever the that version of the final version of notes looks like uh will also be included for the public. So just to be clear so there will be something in writing that I'll say future council counselors can go back and read and go oh yeah this this is what the past committee has suggested. It won't just be that they have to go back to the YouTube meeting of council in order to capture that. It'll be part of the agenda. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. I just want to say I agree with Jennifer um that I I think a visual would would be good and everyone else is doing a visual and it I I think it's appealing and it helps people to understand. You can speak to it. Uh, I mean, if you put up a slide that's just got a speech on it, uh, you're going to lose everybody. So, that's my thoughts. I will definitely take these comments back to the clerk for consideration. Thank you. Any other comments or suggestions from committee members? I was just wondering the timeline for us to complete the accomplishments and future opportunities, give it to the clerk. What What was the deadline on that? as in the timeline for committee members to submit to the clerk. Is that the timeline you're you're asking about, member demare? Yes, that's correct. Thanks. I will have to get back to you to give you an exact date, but to to lay it out. It would need to be in advance of the June committee meetings agenda publication. So the Friday before the meet, the week before the meeting is within that week, it'll have to be submitted. Again, I'll give you an exact date. Apologies, it's not very clear, but in time for the agenda to go out for the June finance meeting. So, I I would say or I'd suggest that when you send this email out to councelor How and all of us that perhaps you look at the calendar and then add in there the date that the drop dead date for us to make submissions back to the clerk's department. That would be helpful. Thank you. Any other questions about this process? I'm sorry. I I'm going to add one other matter under other business because I I realized I don't have my cell phone in front of me and I had had it open on there. Um I noticed in the news that the town of Fort Erie hired a consultant to help them with long-term planning. We did it in house. I just want to make that really clear. Kudos to uh our team. Um, but I guess really my question is, and I have meant to get to it and to try and read it and I haven't had time yet, but to ask our finance staff and and Mr. Del Monaco in particular, like if you'd be so kind as to try and read what they did or what the consultant gave them and see if there's anything we pick up in there as to suggestions on things we we could do. Or maybe we did everything they did but just did it in house. I don't know. But I know that we, you know, behind the scenes we keep talking about, well, what are the next steps that we need to take in terms of long-term financial planning and, you know, is any any other municipality doing anything out there and how do we learn from them, right? And so I saw that the town of Fordier had hired a consultant and and they came to council with the report and I just didn't get a chance to read it. And so wondering if if you'd be so kind and maybe we can talk about it um outside of this meeting too. Councelor Barty, go ahead. Um, I'm wondering if we should reflect on some of the capital investments that have been considered for the future and see if they're still uh relevant. I I'm thinking that I've got something in mind that would be that would be perhaps fall under the category of you know future opportunities things that should be looked at or whatever right that would be yeah the exact sort of feedback that it it's I I think of it as if we were sitting here with the future members or the you know if we were sitting here I'll say a year from now with the new finance committee you know, what advice would we give them, right? Um that okay, look at this, look at that, redo the terms of reference, whatever, right? Like um yeah, what suggestions would we have for them on where they go or things to improve? Right. Any other thoughts from committee members? Well, there's no resolution about that what's coming. Um we just um we'll wait for the email from our clerk's department on that. Uh so the next meeting of our finance committee is Thursday, May 28th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. Thank you everyone. This meeting is adjourned.

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