Sound check. One, two. Sound check. Sound check. Bonjour. Good morning everyone. We're going to start in one minute. Thank you. Mercy. Good morning everyone. As we begin our meeting today and on behalf of Ottawa City Council, I wish to acknowledge that Ottawa is built on unseated Anesnab Alangquin territory. Millionaire. I'll ask now for the roll call, please. >> Cancer Lulov. >> Good morning. Councelor Dudath >> present. >> Councelor Curry >> here. >> Councelor Gower >> here. >> Councelor Tierney >> present. >> Councelor King >> here. >> Councelor Leaper >> you see. >> Councelor Brochington >> here. >> Councelor Manard >> here. >> Councelor Brown >> here. >> Vice Chair Kitz >> here. >> Mayor Satcliffe >> here. >> Cor Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you. Are there any declarations of interest? Confirmation of minutes from our meeting on June 2nd. Are those confirmed? >> All right. We have the Q2 tax, transit, and rate operating, and capital budget status update and forecast. We'll hold that. From uh planning, development, and building services, we have the Brownfield grant application for 349 Danforth Avenue. Is that carried? >> Just said, mayor. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um from strategic initiatives we have the delegation of authority uh acquisition and sale of land and property. Is that received? >> Okay. And then we have an in camera item we'll get to later. So we'll come back to item 4.1 which is the Q2 tax transit and rate operating and capital budget status update and year-end forecast. And I'll turn it over to staff for a presentation. >> Thank you and good morning Mr. Mayor and members of the committee. So today myself and Sid Lana will be presenting the operating capital results for the citywide tax supported services, transit services, and the rate supported programs. The reporting period covered today is from January 1st to June 30th, 2026 on the actual basis. And we're also taking the opportunity to provide a fullear forecast to the end of the year for 2026. Next slide, please. So this slide I've been I've been introduced a couple couple years ago in the cycle in terms of really touching in on the economic uh impacts or the economic status that we're experiencing. So the broader economic environment does remain challenging. Uh the policy interest rate is currently set at 2.25%. Inflation was approximately 3% in the second quarter. Uh the outlook does continue to indicate that the plan is trying to get back to that 2% range late in 2026 early into 2027. Economic growth uh is expected to maintain or remain modest GTB growth of 7% in 2026 and then increasing to 1.8 in 2027 and 2028. Ottawa is also facing a unique uh labor market pressures as I previously discussed in Q1. Uh the federal workforce continues to project to decline by 1.7% annually through 2030 and the unplanned rate is forecasted to increase to about 6.6% by the end of 2026. At the same time, there are some good news good news opportunities. Uh we do see continued areas of economic stren strength including technology, defense, tourism, construction and manufacturing. Uh consumer and business confidence remains weak reflecting disruptive trade flows, tariff impacts, changing gaps, changing gas prices and financial market volatility. These conditions continue to affect our revenues, our service demand, our procurement processes and and overall costs and the pace of the economic activity. Next slide, please. As previously mentioned, this is a Q2 update. So it covers the period from January through end of June. We'll capture the update on the overall operating status for citywide services, tax supported services, transit services, and the rate program results of ops, OPPL, OP, they will go through their respective boards on a consolidated basis at the end of the year. We do capture all that, but our in-ear reporting is exclusive to the control over here and then the boards go through their separate separate mandates. So the numbers today does exclude ops, OPPL, OP. Next slide, please. So the city's second quarter position reflects a consolidated operating deficit of 38.6 million and our current fullear forecast reflects a projected 11.2 million surplus. This represents a significant improvement from the first half of the of the year. You know the city's continued focus on disciplined financial management, proactive mitigation strategies across all service areas. There's a few key points that I want to highlight. First, the rate supporter program continues to perform well. The projected year-end forecast is at $20.2 million surplus, which reflects a strong operational performance across water, wastewater, and storm and helps support the long-term sustainability of this critical systems. Second, transit continues to experience financial pressures. The projected year in deficit has improved relative to the prior forecast. The current forecast of 12.3 million reflects the ongoing efforts to manage expenditures while supporting service reliability and ridership growth. And third, across the citywide tax supported services, departments have been actively identifying mitigation strategies, managing controllable costs to address emerging pressures. And these these efforts will continue and have positive trends on our revenue and have significantly improved our outlook to the end of the year. It is also important to note that the substantial portion of the second quarter year-to- date deficit is driven by timing and seasonality factors that normalize over the remainder of the year. So that's our our winter season which is the main one of our main drivers in terms of the overall Q2 year-to- date deficit. We have four months of activity January through April. We do a seasonal transition in November 15th time frame. So the back end we do have a budget calendarized for one and a half months versus the first half. So it's not abnormal to see bigger deficits in the first half of the year given winter activity. other calendarized items in our budget such as our investment income, self-s surplus lands, all those non-dep departmental revenue accounts, they tend to be in the back half of the year. So sometimes you will see, you know, a little bit of a shift from a a deficit depending on the winter season. And we really picked that up in the back after year through those non-EP departmental accounts, specifically our investment income. So overall the the forecast demonstrates the resiliency of our fiscal framework. Uh despite the uncertainty of economic conditions, inflationary pressures and contained demand for municipal services, the organization remains focused on responsible stewardship, ensuring that tax dollars are wellmaintained and service levels are maintained for residents. We will continue to closely monitor these expenditures and revenues the remainder of the year. So in summary, key messages from a Q2 perspective, we do have a you know significant improvement in a forecasted surplus of 11.2 2 million. Again, mainly driven by our investment income. If you recall, in the last two or three years, our investment income has done really well. Uh we've had we've had surpluses in the tune of 20 40 $30 million in 2025. We are projecting a modest surplus this year at 12 million surplus for investment income. That's what you're going to see in the back half of the year. That's a conservative projection. We don't be, you know, excessive on our revenue projections. We're watching that closely. that that's all contingent on the market, but that's an area that we're really seeing the benefit of the pickup. Also, we have a good pipeline of land cells. So, we do have we do have a number of surplus lands and land cells in our pipeline that are on the mark to be closed this year that will also help in terms of that surplus uh getting us back to that surplus by the end of the year. Next slide, please. So, as I previously touched on, there's three main drivers or or two main drivers from operating perspective. Winter operations uh finished the first half of the year with a $41.6 million deficit. Uh the city experienced 49 snow days which was 29% above the 5-year average of 38 days and a total snowfall of 175 cmters compared to the 5-year average of 171 cmters. As I previously talked about in during the budget process and previous quarterly reports, when we do the annual budget, we do look at three, five, 10 year trends of winter operations. uh back in the in the fall when we were setting the 2026 budget, the five-year trend was the $103 million budget and that's what the budget is for 2026. So when we sit when we establish that budget for for 2026, we look at the three 510 and we establish a budget of the 5-year trend which is the 103. We continue to monitor that. There's been years, if you look at the past 10 years, there's been a number of years we've had surpluses, 2020, 21, 22 deficits. We do have our tax stabilization to mitigate against those risks, but we always calibrate that budget year-over-year. This is two backto-back years that we've had significant snowfalls, but we'll recalibrate that as we get into the next cycle. On the transit side, uh from a reporting perspective, Q2 finished with 8.9 million deficit. This is projected to increase to 12.3 by the end of the year. The key pressure in transit is fair revenue. So, the shortfall. So again back in the fall when we talked about setting the the the ridership forecasts in September October time frame actual transit ridership was in at 81 82%. So we established the budget in 2026 at 83% for ridership coming into the year there's been obviously we have not hit that but we established a budget based on what we were seeing at that time. So so again the wrership is one of the biggest drivers. We also have a $47 million placeholder in our budget for the provincial funding which is related to the LRT upload. We continue to work with the province. Staff continue to work with the province in terms that commitment for the upload. The due diligence process will be a long lengthy process. We're collaborating, sharing information, ongoing discussions, uh meeting at a frequent cadence. So at this time, I'm still forecasting that we will receive that funding for this year by by end of the year. Uh so overall the improvement reflects expected revenue gains from investment income and overall non-EP departmental revenue accounts to bring that overall uh year-end picture to 11.2 million surplus. I will now pass it to Sana for the next slide please. Next slide. >> Turning to the rate supported programs all three service areas are reporting favorable results through the second quarter and are expected to finish the year in a surplus. At Q2, drinking water is reporting a s surplus of 2.9 million and is forecasted to end a year with a 7 million surplus. Wastewater services is supporting a 5.9 million surplus at Q2 and is projected to reach 11 million by year end. Storm water services is reporting a 1.7 million surplus with a projected year-end surplus of 2.2 million. Combined, the rate supported programs are reporting a 10.4 4 million surplus IQ2 which is expected to increase to approximately 20.2 million by year end. The favorable position is primarily driven by two factors. Compensation savings resulting from vacant positions and water consumption revenues that are trending above budget assumptions. It is important to know that unlike tax supported services, rate supported programs are funded through dedicated user rates. As a as a result, the surpluses do not offset pressures in tax supported programs. Instead, they are transferred to rate reserves where they help fund um future infrastructure investments and support the longrange financial plans for water, wastewater, and storm water services. Says contribute. Next slide, please. In response to the financial risks and pressures, the city continues to take proactive steps to manage expenditures, strengthen financial performance, and reduce the potential impact of emerging pressures. A number of corporate cost control measures have been implemented, including a hiring freeze, as well as restrictions on travel, training, and other discretionary spending. These measures are helping departments manage staffing and operational costs while maintaining service delivery. In addition, financial services um has enhanced its monitoring and oversight processes through more frequent forecast reviews and increased scrutiny of departmental spending plans. The city is also advancing a range of corporate revenue initiatives aimed at maximizing available revenues. The impact of these mitigation measures has been incorporated into the year end forecast presented today. Thank you, SW Atlanta. So, the city continues to manage our year results in accordance with our reserve policies and our long-term financial plans. As I talked about during the budget setting process, the tax stabilization reserve is projected to end the year with a $89 million uh balance. And this is well within the policy target of 36 at the minimum level and 114 at the max level. And if you recall, the 114 captures the 47 million if that does not come through. So the actual uh policy for the taxization max balance is 67 million. If you recall during the 25 budget process and again in the 2026 budget process when we put that place over there from provincial funding. So in 2026 we put that $47 million placeholder there. The risk mitigation and the backs stop was was to have a higher target in our tax stabilization reserve to the 114. Even with the $89 million projected ending balance if that 47 million worst case scenario does not come through the tax stabilization is there to build for that will bring it down close to our minimum but still above the minimum target. So again that was the risk mitigation that we put in place during the budget process and that still is in place today to backs stop that risk just in case that funding does not come in time of our year-end process. The transit operating reser reserve uh is at 3.6 million. So that one is below uh the main target. So from a long-range financial plan perspective and a reserve policy perspective, uh the $12 million mark is what we like to have there in that minimum balance for transit. Of course, as we talked about many times and as we brought forth this council in this term, that's all driven by the upload. That's the importance of ensuring that the upload goes through because that will help us get it back to that financial sustainable view for for this reserve. As that occurs, we'll be back with updated long-range financial plan for transit, and we'll speak to those balances as we go forward. Overall, the rate the rate uh reserves are strong and healthy uh to continue to be well within our our our needs at 147.6 million. These are only three components that I'm sharing here today. Overall, our reserve balances because there's a lot of reserves that we have that are kind of isolate to specific functions. We're still well over 500 million in our total reserve balances overall, which is strong. It continues to be an area that our creditors look at and helps us maintain our double A plus and our AAA credit rating. Next slide, please. So, some key takeaways. So, there's four four key messages today for committee. First, the Q2 deficit was driven primary by the exceptional number of winter events in the first half of the year and ongoing transit pressures. Second, the city's mitigation measures are working. Spending controls, hiring controls, enhanced monitoring, and corporate revenue initiatives are all helping to offset the first after year and get us back to a surplus position by the end of the year. Third, continued financial discipline remains essential. The year in year forecast is positive, but is important to note that there are some risks there. As I talked about, there's risk in terms of timing of, you know, getting through processes. So, I'm still we're still forecasting that funding coming from the province. We're still having discussions with the due diligence process that's ongoing. That's still there. We have a good pipeline of land sales that's still there. U if any of those two items slip, it just falls into the next year, but that revenue will be captured and subsequently re replenished back into the tax stabilization reserve. As I talked about on the previous slide, the tax stabilization reserve was built for this risk mitigation. If these funding things do not come through, we add that reserve built for that purpose to mitigate against those risks. And finally, management continues to commit to the achieve the year- end results. Stronger citywide revenues and stable rate supported services provide meaningful offsets that staff will continue to monitor. In summary, the Q2 results highlight material financial pressures, particularly in winter operations and transit. At the same time, the year and outlook demonstrates that timely management of actions, expenditure restraints, and stronger than budget revenues and non-EP departmental accounts continue to help improve the city's overall position. Our current forecast is for 11.2 million consolidated surplus, but we are treating these projections with appropriate caution. As I talked about, we're confirmation of the provincial transit funding, fair revenue performance, and sustainability of overall citywide revenues continues to be monitored and in scope. And again, the backs stop risk mitigation is what we built our tax stabilization reserve balance for carrying that higher balance for those risks as the timing of those things occur. Mr. Mayor, members of committee, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to take some questions. Thank you. >> Thank you very much for that excellent presentation, Councelor Curry. >> Thank you very much. Um, so I I honestly my overall comment is it sounds like you have everything under control. You know, you've got all your risks mitigated. I would say that the risks that I think about are are not maybe you just didn't touch on them is from all the flooding that we've had the changes that we may have to make for infrastructure in general. Um would you say that you're anticipating that that's factored in or you don't see that till 2027? >> Uh Mr. Mayors. So, from a flooding perspective to date, uh we've incurred about $4 million worth of expenditures uh across public works, solid waste, uh infrastructure, water rate, and uh storm water infrastructure. That will be a pressure that we're doing obviously as the review is ongoing with my colleague with Tammy, but the rate reserves are are in a good position. So, we have the $147 million balance in our rate reserves. So, we do have a strong balance in our reserves. We know the the water wastewater storm water infrastructure is a critical component of our infrastructure. We know it's very capital intensive. We brought forward the rate LRFP in this term council. It's fully funded uh uh plan for for the future. Obviously now this has other implications but again the reserve balances are there to help support the you know the next steps or whatever those outcomes may be in terms of further or increased investments. >> Okay. the weather uh risk if if it we didn't like I gather El Nino means we may have another winter just like who knows nobody has a crystal ball but uh if we had terrible weather but not until January does that help us a lot it's just that we have to worry about what we've got uh November December >> that is correct we we are on a calendar year which is good so December 31st is our cuto off so hopefully uh we get no snow until after January 1st Okay. Exactly. Okay. Well, we'll all pray for that. Um the uh assumption that transit uh ridership will go up based on you know RTO. Um so we had actual 67 we estimated 87 or whatever. What is our actual estimate now for with RTO? >> I'll pass it to you. Um, so we are expecting ridership to go up with the current, you know, return to office and more people going to school and working. We also are expecting higher ridership uh because we're able to deliver more service with the bus fleet and the train fleet being in a much better position. Um, I don't have here the what the year-end percentage of ridership would be compared to 2019, but I can find that out. Okay. I just I mean that's always a risky one. We've never seemed to be uh fully accurate on that. I mean again no no one has a crystal ball but it would be interesting to know what we are projecting. I mean maybe transit committee gets that but then what the costs are. Obviously we add more buses and everything else the costs go up as well. So where we end up at the end of the year is uh is I I think is still a little bit risky. Um the other risk is the economic uh conditions. I think that one's just sort of like an extra sentence in your report because nobody knows what that's going to look like. Obviously, we've got all kinds of decisions being made uh you know, every moment, but you feel you are you what you've contemplated here is safe enough for the rest of this year. >> Uh Mr. Mayor, yes. I mean, it's I've talked about this before during the budget and previous reports. Economic conditions are so unccalibrated. the the world of economics is on calibrated in the last two three years you know political unrest tariffs you know fuel the war in the in the east everything just there's no real pattern so whenever I talk to my economists my bankers you know we struggle to figure you know what is truly predictable from what used to be predictable so the norm has certainly shifted uh what I can tell you that you know what we presented here today you know we are in a good position you know the federal government is downsizing some but then there's also uptake in defense events, tourism, high-tech. So, there's kind of we've always been in a better position. You know, when I look at Ottawa in terms of like, you know, across the province and across the country, the ups and downs in in employment as an example, feds go down, other industries kind of pick up, other industries go down, you know, public sector sometimes picks up. So, we've been kind of been able to weather the storm a little bit, and that trend is is predicted to continue. So, it's a cautious uh look forward, but I'm confident in what we what we have for the rest of this year. Yes. Okay. Uh just a couple of other quick things. The number you said of of you know federal government going down was that 1.7%. Is that the number you said? >> So 1.7 uh but many of that that 1.7 could mean that people are simply retiring. My understanding is tons are taking their early retirement package. Uh which means they're not then unemployed you know I mean like you know in terms of income they have they have income. So uh when the federal government gives us those numbers do they actually tell us that kind of granularity? No. No. Okay. All right. Um I think there was one other thing, but I'll let other people ask their questions if I think about there's one other thing. But anyway, I you know, there's always risks. I think our economic risk is the biggest one, but as you say, there are mitigations. There's there's lots going on certainly in the tech sector, I can tell you. So, like, let's hope. I don't know if by the end of this year, we'd actually see that fruits of some of those projects, but you know, maybe. Okay, I'll wait and see what other people have to say. >> Thank you, Councelor Brockington. >> Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to staff for providing the update for us. Um, few observations. The water surplus, I was a bit surprised just given the rainy season we've had. Usually when it's quite dry, people are watering more and we like that because they consume water. But, uh, a surplus is a surplus, so I won't complain. Um, transit, I have a number of of questions. And then I have an overall tax question about the downtown recovery. Um when it's been so difficult over the last few years coming out of CO to sort of stabilize ridership fairs and other key budget lines. Um I'd rather we be uber conservative with our estimates than not. I think we have that's the responsible thing to do. And we have been continuously approving transit budgets that have very ambitious ridership and revenue data in them, estimates, and we've been wrong. And at what point are we going to have budgets that are presented to the commission and council that have more accurate and realistic data to ensure that uh it reflects the reality? And this is an issue I've raised many times. Um, I'm most interested in making sure OC Transpo understands why ridership hasn't recovered to the point um that they were estimating it to be and what efforts are being undertaken to acquire more ridership. Now, the easy answer would be, well, we're making the system more reliable and and here's our plan and when that fully implemented, we'll win people back. But um the the macro vision that I would like to see is we really want to get we really do want to get to precoid numbers. We have this roadmap and yet every quarter we continue to see a deficit for the last six years. Uh fair evasion another huge thing contributing to uh lack of revenue. Every single operator I've spoken to over the summer, we've talked about fair evasion, the rampidness of fair evasion. And uh again, very slow progress on uh plugging that hole. That's probably millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars that we're losing for fair evasion. So page three very positive ones uh were bailed out by the province quote significant step towards improving the long-term financial sustainability and yet I want to see the plan for wrership. I want to see the plan for fair evasion because the provincial dollars doesn't improve wrership. The provincial dollars doesn't improve fair evasion. will still have problems. And that's what I want to see and what I continue to raise over and over again. Um, Mr. Rogers, you've you may have used the term placeholder before, but again, I'm not familiar with that term when it comes to a budget because a placeholder in my mind means a number we're not exactly sure we'll be able to to meet or who we're expecting the funds from. And um again in your mind how many budgets will you present to us that has sort of provincial funding placeholder when it's been difficult to date to understand the timelines of these dollars. Uh my understanding it's a multi-year negotiation or discussion between us and the province. Uh we remain hopeful. Every time the mayor talks about this publicly, he's very optimistic that a deal will be done. Um but and you've explained where the money will come from today. If that isn't delivered, we'll pull from the uh the reserve fund. I get it. again, why not just identify the dollars in next year's budget as uh the reserve fund and if throughout the year we get the money from the provincial government, we'll just swap it. And that that to me is a more realistic accurate description of where the money's coming from than literally for the last few six years we've been bailed out by the province first when COVID revenues weren't realized. they're bailing people out across the province. Um, but also what could be a multi-year negotiation. So, there's got to be an accounting explanation to this. And I'd like to hear your thoughts, Mr. Mayor. So, you know, there is no true accounting definition of a placeholder, if you will. When we do a budget, we're establishing a buzz budget based on a variety of assumptions, and the placeholder is really an assumption. So I was quite clear it's quite clear in the budget book that what that assumption is for that 47 million and for me the important part was the risk mitigation. So when we table the budget and I presented the budget through the budget process we had a risk mitigation which is a tax stabilization reserve. So that's that's point number two. Number three, if I were if we continue on this trajectory of continuing to put placeholders there and the money isn't coming and that t tax stabilization reserve goes well down below our minimum balance, then I have no risk mitigation. So council will need to make that decision on what they want to do with that. If I look back at the history of our our our taxization since I've been in with this city in 2014, I think back in the 2015 time frame, our tax stabilization reserve was only at four just over $4 million. So, we we built a strong plan to get the get to a point where we are today. We built strong financial plans. We know we have a systemic issue with our financial transit structure that's unique to us. Why is the city of Ottawa paying for a system that no other city in the province is paying for? So if we if you know my rebuttal could be if if I just basically say don't worry about a province. I'm going to solve the 47 million and if it comes I'll just put it back into my bank account. There's no pressure there. We need to put as much pressure as we can to make sure we have equity in terms of our financial structure for the upload so the province can really put that pressure there. I think we've seen that. We've seen that this year in terms of the the signing of theou. Uh you know the the the work with the province has certainly increased since we signed thatou. Staff are having you know frequent conversations with the province sharing lots of information. It will be a process. It is a process. So you know those are how I presented the budget very clear with risk with strategies. So, you know, as we get into the next cycle, we'll see where we're at at that time. And, you know, I always come forward with with assumptions, but risk mitigations for those assumptions so that council can make the right decision and direct us what to do with that decision based on our recommendations. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, the two deficits that you've illustrated on uh the table on page two, Q1 and Q2, are those separate quarterly deficits or is the figure in Q2 yeartodate? That's correct. So, so Q1 is year to date and Q2 captures Q1 plus the the three months in Q2. So, it's year-to- date numbers in Q2. So, the total what you see in Q, that's the total at the end of June. Fair enough. And just can you comment on the the gas the price of gas that OC Transpo is paying? The Ottawa police are reporting significant pressures due to gas. Is OC Transpo in the same contract? >> Uh, Mr. Okay. So, transit, we have the edging program. So, that's where we we leverage for our fuel. Mainly, it's mainly diesel fuel is where we get the biggest uh price reduction for our fuel. So, we're kind of again risk mitigated against the price of fuel. Uh ops, they don't use that. They use the pumps. So, they they pay market pricing. They have different uh things in place, but so we benefit from our edging program for transit. So, we're not seeing the same pressures that uh OPS are seeing for fuel. Thank you, councelor Gower. >> Thanks, Mayor. Uh, I want to focus on transit. Uh, one is about paratranspo and, uh, the extra writership uh, beyond the extra expense. Um, are there how how is OC transfer managing that? >> Uh, Mr. Mayor, parat transfer writership is higher this year than it was last year. Uh and the uh costs you see added costs you see in this report are related to the extra um contracted service that we've had to bring in to carry those additional customers. >> Contracted service meaning taxi. >> Hey taxis. >> Okay. Um just on the wrership I want to make sure I'm understanding what we've heard already. So last fall we were seeing ridership recovery of about 81 to 82% of prepandemic levels. And based on that the budget assumption was 82% of ridership of 2019. we'd see 82% in 2026, but in the first 6 months of this year, we only reached 67% compared to 2019, which seems to me like we lost about almost a fifth of our ridership disappeared during the first six months of the year. Is that about accurate? >> Um, certainly it went down a lot. I don't know if it's a fifth, but um ridership was significantly lower than we expected in the first part of this year. >> And that was when we were seeing the worst bus reliability numbers. >> Uh we were we had uh single car trains running on the O train on line one. We had uh many trips that we weren't able to deliver because of the um aged bus fleet uh and uh employment in Ottawa was lower uh this year than it had been last year. So there was just fewer trips being made um and fewer passes being purchased. I know we've also asked about the impact the lower number of foreign students attending colleges and universities and staff had said that they were doing an analysis on that. Do you have any updates or is there any additional information on what impact that's had on writership? >> That doesn't seem to have been a major contributor to to what we noticed in the first part of this year. It is still something that uh we watch closely and uh we're very interested interested to see uh what the registration levels are this fall at all of the u post-secondary institutions. >> Okay. And one of my colleagues asked previously what percentage of wrership are you using to forecast the year end? I assume it's somewhere between 67 and 82%. Can you get us those numbers before council or at transit committee next week? I have those numbers now. >> Well, you have them now. >> Um, and the the year- end forecast uh that you're seeing here today is now based on writership being at 72% of the prepandemic levels. >> Okay. >> Now, we will see what this fall is like. I mean, that 72% averaged over the year. Uh, with the 67% in the first half of the year, we are expecting it to be considerably higher starting now and for the next four months. and what it actually is will inform us as we build the budget for next year. >> Okay. Thank you. And could staff also explain for the year-end forecast what assumptions you've made around Line One East extension? Are we assuming any expenses uh payments made to RTG for that before the end of the year? >> Mr. Mayor, we are uh continuing to expect the line one extension to open and but we are showing any savings which have occurred as as savings. So because the line did not open in July and nor in August, we have those savings and and we've accounted for them in the in the numbers you've seen. >> Okay. But going forward, we've made an assumption. >> The budget bas >> the budget is based on that line opening on the 1st of July this year. >> Okay. >> It did not open on the 1st of July. So the savings that we have accured to this point are bringing our our year-end projection down. We make no projections as to when it when it will be able to open. >> Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Mayor. >> Thank you, Councelor Gower. Councelor Lulaf. >> Thanks so much, Mayor. Um, on on transit, broken fair boxes have led to a loss of more than half a million dollars, which is a bit of an own goal uh when it comes to not being able to reduce that transit deficit. What's worse, you know, we're wasting special constable resources when we charge those who wanted to pay the fair but couldn't when they are checked at transfers. We can't make headway if we're not properly connecting collecting the revenue. Um, so what have what have we been doing? uh to remedy this. >> Um Mr. Mayor, we have a a response to an inquiry going to the transit committee meeting uh next week where we show that uh the time that the fair machines were not working on buses was uh limited to a particular area earlier this a particular time slot earlier this year when availability of those devices fell to about 93 or 94% but it is now back up to the 99% um that we previously had and we have again. So there's those fair uh devices have all been repaired and there's a chart in that uh document where you can see an abrupt fall a sharp increase and then a gradual increase since then. So uh reliability of those devices is quite high right now. >> Thanks Pat that's great. Um what ongoing work is being done to become more efficient uh in the areas that we're seeing def deficits? You can start with OC Transpo. Yesterday, some R1 drivers had no idea uh where they were going and took a bunch of my residents on a tour of Sandy Hill. It's a beautiful neighborhood. Uh but it's really not the right time when people are trying to get to work. This is just a small example, but efficiency doesn't always mean digging into the numbers, but it it builds trust and trust builds wrership. Uh, Mr. Mayor, does the counselor have a specific question that I can answer? >> Yeah. What what work um are you doing at OC Transpo to ensure that that we're being as efficient as possible? Um, having drivers not really know their routes doesn't seem to be very efficient to me. Is there training being done? Are we following up on these sorts of incidents? >> Um, Mr. Mayor, we follow up on all incidents that are reported. Uh I I'm sure this was reported uh to others yesterday. It's the first I've heard about it, but um there's so many things that we're working on to uh make sure that we get the best value for customers and residents from uh every hour we work and every dollar we spend. um improving processes in the garages. Uh training and retraining operators, answering questions from customers and having them feed back directly into the the management of service and the planning of service. Uh reallocating as we've done this week, reallocating resources from uh trips where where uh customers had other alternatives. the the school uh as the school transportation authorities uh resumed carrying some of those people in in their uh yellow school bus contractors, moving those resources over to um add extra capacity and reduce travel time for people returning to work this week and next week. Many many things that we're doing and um a lot of those are reflected in our customer first action plan. >> Thank you. uh serial, can you talk about some of the efficiency efforts uh in other areas and maybe a bit about where you're starting to see some challenges with that? >> Yeah, Mr. Mayor, so we continue to like look at our discretionary non-discretionary accounts. So like I I'll pick on the low hanging fruit if you will first. Uh you know, from a travel perspective, we're we're really trying to, you know, contain travel. So honest is warranted. We don't travel. You know, training, we still invest heavily in training, but there's different ways we can do training. We do a lot of training internally. We do a lot of training where the trainer comes to us. So, we're doing those things as opposed to us going to them. That way, we can leverage bigger classrooms on our sites as a simple example. You know, we continue to look at, you know, this term of council, we've achieved that $252.7 million worth of efficiencies. That's kind of instilled in in everything that we do. The hiring freeze, again, hiring freeze for nonoperational service where there's no service impacts. really taking a pause and seeing what we need to do and what what we can kind of delay till the end of the year to kind of get those offsets and savings there. So, we're always looking at those opportunities. We're always trying to be, you know, think differently. If I look at my investment income, you know, we transition to the prudent investment this this term. We've seen, you know, significant improvements there in our non non-EP departmental accounts. Earlier this year, I was before committee and council when we talked about the removal of the automated speed enforcement cameras. A lot of those staff have moved over now to my collections team. So we have a lot of, you know, old collections from old, you know, parking fines, old fees, etc. So they really double down on those and we're seeing, you know, we're seeing net increases in our revenue there. So we're really looking at any opportunity across the board where we can save on the expenditure. We can kind of utilize a bit more revenue to really offset those deficits so we're not drawing from that tax stabilization reserve where we don't need to. So those are just ongoing things that we talk about on a regular basis. uh the finance team meets with every uh every leader, every GM on a monthly basis. They go through the numbers, they look for opportunities, you know, they look at what pressures are coming, you know, what what's on the horizon, and now we can kind of stick handle things differently. So, those are just normal ongoing day-to-day things that we do. >> Yeah, I really appreciate your focus on on ensuring um operational sustainability. I think that, you know, we want to make sure that the service level that we're providing to residents uh isn't impacted uh by that effort. You know, I'm reminded of um you know, my former MP's push at national defense uh for for uh more tooth and and less tail if we can sort of um cap some of the some of the backend stuff that's not really um helping out residents, not really directing uh not really um ensuring that residents are receiving the services that they deserve. That that's uh that's good work. So, I appreciate that. Uh my last uh question uh pertains uh to the uploads that we've been waiting on uh both uh the upload of uh of the LRT and Highway 174. How certain are we right now that those uploads are moving forward? You know, we've seen announcements from the provincial government in other areas of the province, but it seems as though that we're still negotiating. Do we have any indication of when we might realize these uploads? What what are you anticipating? >> Uh Mr. Mayor, I'll I'll touch on I'll call it the easier one first, the 174. Uh that work is I would say is you know well well down down the line in terms of getting getting there. We're close. Uh we're not quite there yet but that work is in a good position. You know the commitment is there through the Ontario Ottawa deal. We're receiving the funding as they committed to. We've you know we're in the final stages of due diligence process. You know I can't speak to the timing because that's with them that's with the province to make the timing on that but what I can tell you is that one I'm really really really confident on. uh the LRT obviously that's that's a complex right and if I go back to my private industry days and mergers and acquisition these things are complex uh what I can say and that's why I'm optimistic in terms of having the forecast and still receiving that money this year is the discussions are ongoing they've certainly uh advanced they've certainly increased in in the frequency uh since we signed theou so these are things that you know I'm optimistic on in terms of going through that process and I'm you know we're going to continue to push that work closely with with the the ministry staff at MTO etc. That work is ongoing. So you know I can't put a timeline on that one. Those things can be you know you know if I if I were to go back to previous experiences outside of the city I would say you know 9 18 months is certainly a reasonable timeline to put on that. Uh but certainly that work is is ongoing and continues. We we certainly are seeing um that funding um being spent on the 174 and and really do appreciate that. And uh you know, last night we had the line painting which has been desperately needed through Cumberland Village and and into Orleans uh you know, kudos to the transportation chair and uh to our transportation team for for moving that work forward. Really really do appreciate it. Hopefully that work continues overnight in through uh up to the split. Uh we've I know that uh Tim, Laura, Katherine, and I hear quite a bit about uh about the about the lines and how confusing they can be just uh given like uh all of the lane movement over the course of uh of the the building of uh of of the train system. So uh thanks uh for the work that's being done uh to uh to fix that. We appreciate uh staff's effort on that. Thanks. >> Thank you, Councelor Lulof, Councelor Leaper. Thank you very much, Mayor. Um, I have a number of smaller questions I'll just pose offline, I think. But one of the things that struck me about the results was the number of mentions of staffing vacancies as a way of u managing the the deficits that we're experiencing. Um, I saw staffing uh vacancies in IWS, in RCFS, transit, PDBs, uh, sorry, PDBs, um, CSS. How many positions are we currently not staffing? And then what is the uh the value of that work? >> Mr. Mayor, it changes day in day out because obviously there's no there's normal like in our numbers as examples, I'll pick on the easy one like when we look at our lifeguards and our seasonal staff like as that closes off this week, next week my number will be different. We typically run in that uh you know ballpark, don't hold me to it, is in that 350 to 400 vacancies. you know, we have over 22,000 employees globally across the network. So that's not a big big number. Uh so that's roughly where we see. We're also seeing, you know, coming through the pandemic, I spoke about this before, we saw, you know, a struggle for us to attract talent from the federal sector and not our public sectors. Uh what we're seeing now is that that's kind of back there again because as they go through their process, some people may be holding on for certain packages, if you will. uh but for for priority jobs we are ensuring that priority jobs where there's a you know need for operations those are full steam ahead those are being staffed the other jobs where there's not necessarily operational requirement those are ones I guess pause and that's where we're kind of seeing the yield on that savings okay I'd be interested in getting more insight on that because residents you know frequently express to me and they express to my colleagues I'm sure frustration with the length of time that it takes to get certain things done and I'm I'm concerned that our staffing levels are are razor thin. Um, in terms of attracting talent, I would suggest a flexible uh workplace is a good um uh good strategy, but I'll leave that there. Um, there is uh sorry, the public works deficit is forecast to be $29 million at the end of the year. I think I heard you say that um there are additional flooding costs that currently you're thinking are around $4 million or so. So that would be tacked on. Is do you expect that that's going to be roughly the number? From operating perspective, I would say yes. I would think that would be close to the number from operating perspective because we've kind of at the tail end of that. A lot of that a lot of that cost from the public works perspective is within solid waste. So still within the public works numbers but that's that that's roughly where I would see that number kind of stabilizing at. >> Okay. So and that's uh obviously within the context of the total budget not huge and uh we have uh we have the reserves to handle that if we need it. Um there was no money spent I'm looking at the um document three the the capital budget. Uh there was no money spent from the interim housing assistance program uh where 77.6 6 million was uh allocated in authority um nor the newcomer reception program at 19.5 million. Do you expect that those funds will be spent at some point? >> I do uh you know I don't expect them to be fully spent. So again if you if you look at our capital obviously we budget for the full cost upfront and then that gets spent over time. So I do expect to see some spending starting to occur this year. It won't be fully spent this year. I mean the reality is you know I don't think it will be fully spent this year given the timing but that's normal for our capital programs. >> Yeah. But there is the need to continue to have that authority. It's not able to be transferred over elsewhere. Thank you. Um for the lands down redevelopment uh there are currently 44 million in uncommitted funds. Is that the contingency? >> Uh yes I think that's mainly the contingency. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> And finally the um this has been a long discussion. ice management, uh, frazzil ice management at Lemu Island. Uh, you know, we continue to have 26.5 million, uh, unspent of the 32 million. How close are we to being able to spend those funds and and deal with the frazzil issue? >> Uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, we've encountered some difficulties with the provincial government in Quebec in terms of where we were originally looking to propose to relocate the intakes. Um, so we are needing to pivot and so we we are taking a look at at that new design, but we do expect to to keep it within Ontario, simplify the approvals process and be able to move on quicker. >> Okay. A significant amount of the authority has been spent. Um, can you just describe how that has what that has been spent on? >> Some of that um authority is also spent on the temporary measures that we have. So we have a contingency plan that that we have every every year in case something were to happen uh where we effectively have a bypass solution. So some of those uh monies are spent on those contingency plans that we have and also continue to advance uh the design and some relooking at the design. >> Okay. Do you anticipate that uh you might need to seek further authority on that? >> It would be too early to speculate on that. So I think we need to do some more work first. Okay. Um and then finally, oh sorry, a little bit of a smaller one. Um in planning, there was a $730,000 um variance from what was expected on the um uh the planning applications side. Uh what to what do you attribute that >> uh through the mayor? That is attributed to the slower um housing construction. And so the city of Ottawa has made a number of process changes. Uh we don't control all the levers to move the market, but there has been um more anecdotally we we see a big rise in uh building permits since April. So there is some movement in the system. uh we'll have to see as the year goes through how much of that staples out and uh and how much of that requires a planning approval versus as of right uh permission. So I think uh the question about development charges uh is still um pretty live in terms of um people not knowing whether where that's going to land with the province and the city and how that affects uh housing. So, um it's hard to predict where we are, but our shortfall up until now has been um the the slower market that we've been talking about at planning committee. >> Okay. Uh it'll be an interesting discussion for next year's budget to determine whether increased as of right permissions uh require an adjustment in in our forecast for those revenues. And I I hope we see revenues fall on that side as more as of right moves ahead as a result of the comprehensive zoning bylaws. So, um, it'll be a discussion for another day. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Councelor Tierney. >> Great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to staff. Uh, obviously, we're going to go through some very, uh, tumultuous times and, uh, as we prepare, I think this is very fiscally responsible. Uh, couple of quick questions. Obviously, I know we hedge on our fuel. Uh obviously the reduction on uh carbon pricing has been a massive change. Do we anticipate that's still going to remain the case? >> Yes, certainly. I hopefully that that will remain there. Yes, 100%. >> That's terrific news. Uh also um you know I I have a couple hats just like Riley. Uh we see a lot of these benefits coming from other levels of governments. We just announced even uh you know down at the sewage factory uh recently $30 million to expand scalability and and help environment. Are these the kind of and I you know we have some working inside knowledge Riley and I where the federal government uh even through trickle down to the province is looking investing heavily in infrastructure. Are you getting the same indicators with the people you're speaking about? And also, does this benefit us as local taxpayers seeing that reduction in what investment we have to make? >> Uh, Mr. Mayor, yes and yes. Uh, you know, thanks to your support and councelor Brockton's support because often you'll forward me some information that I might not be aware of at the time, but we are seeing those benefits. If there's a program out there, I know there's there's staff in all of our teams that work closely and look at all these provincial federal grant opportunities. We're always there first at the door and if if you can get me inside the door faster, just come get me and every dollar I can get, I'll I'll take. That's for sure. >> Well, we may be following ministers in the washrooms on occasion, but we always try to get as much money as we can. So, that being said, um we're doing it for uh for the country and for the province as well. Um the 174, this is very promising news. I think this is a massive I so it sounds like it's progressing very well. Uh, of course, the magical 400 series number, we'll never know. The province will have to tell us what that is. We're all very excited about that. Um, have we factored in the cost savings on policing and snow removal? Is this all being factored in as we prepare uh for that transition? >> Uh, Mr. Mayor, yes, th those are all discussions that we're having in terms of, you know, what it looks like when the upload occurs. Yes, >> that's wonderful. Uh, and I'll throw in uh, obviously the LRT. Uh, that's going to be, forgive me. Did you, what what municipalities did you mention that currently don't have the added responsibility of LRT? You mentioned a few. It seems like we're kind of the outlier being Ottawa and them uploading would be a natural fit. And maybe you can speak to what kind of uh, you know, obvious expertise that would go along with that. Would this be a horrible idea if a council just simply outright rejected it just on pure spite saying we don't want to allow, you know, a government to control our transit system? >> Uh, Mr. Mayor, you know, what I can say is, you know, in the GTA region, all the lines in the GTA, they're all being, you know, 95 to 100% fully funded by the province. Uh, you know, the province gives us about 22 23% of our funding. So that's a, you know, we're we're carrying 55% of the overall cost versus, you know, zero for other municipalities in Toronto and Missaga, those areas. It's a gamecher. I've talked about this before in terms of, you know, as we brought briefings forward in terms of the the financial status of transit in the system. We need this. We need to be treated just like our colleagues in other municipalities so that the the right funer is taking care of the right costs. Uh, and that's what we we're looking for. We're seeking for the same exact uh program, if you will, or benefit that, you know, my colleagues in Toronto are receiving, Hamilton, Missaga, etc. That's what we're aiming for, and that will be significant benefit to our overall finances, for sure. Yes, absolutely. And so any cost overruns, if we were just to say that's it. We don't we don't want to give the premier anything at all. We're holding on to our stuff. Uh we know there's cost overruns on a regular basis on these things. If the province assumes at all, they never come back locally and hit us in the pocketbooks. It's their problem to deal with. Would that not be correct, >> Mr. Mayor? I don't want to speculate into the outcome. But certainly that I'm looking for the exact same deals my colleagues got. So, if that's what my my goal is, and I think that's what, you know, if that's what we can achieve, that's what we'll bring forward to committee and council to make that get that support or seek that support from committee and council. But that's the target. You know, they they've done this before. We're not we're not first in line. We're kind of last in line, if you will. So, I'm just looking for that exact same presence they've set, stated our standard, and then we'll be in a good position. >> Well, great. Thank you. And real finally, since line painting came up, it's one of my favorite topics. Uh, so, um, online marking, I I've been in conversations with the federal government since, you know, the new government's come into play because it was federal regulations. Just as a reminder, I know Alan gang all know about this uh and why we have to paint repeatedly and it's creating major issues not just here across the entire country. So I'm hopeful that will change. Uh maybe I don't know if if someone want to speak to what would that look like if we could go back to a previous paint standard or something that won't wash off uh you know every third year. Would that be a cost savings? Uh that's not baked in now obviously, but would that be helpful? Uh, Mr. Mayor, I think at this point, anything that would help in terms of the longevity of our of our paint would be beneficial. >> Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. That was my question today. >> Thank you, councelor Tierney. Councelor Curry. >> Yeah, I remembered my question on just on the general economic situation. Uh, our investment policy when we made those changes was a great thing and it has proven to be great. um when we see the markets and recently you know all this whole year they've gone up and they've gone down if you follow them and what's happening with the bond market what's happening with the stock markets what how quickly did we pivot when things were going up and down and how quickly will we pivot if they continue to go up and down >> Mr. Mayor, so we we leverage our OIB, the auto investment board. So we have a board established where there, you know, there's a membership of five and myself. So obviously, you know, the market is, you know, you jump in, you jump out is not good in the long term, right? So obviously we still are a risk averse entity, which we should be because we are a public entity. So we do manage that, you know, monitor that closely. So if you're in the market just for short term and get out over the long run, that's never successful. So we're in this for like the long game. So we continue to monitor the es and flows like we have quarterly meetings. We have discussions in terms of the performance of the market. You know if things get really risky we move things around for lack of a better terms so that we preserve that uh you know that risk tolerance that we've you know we have in our policy endorsed by council. So those are the things that we continue to watch. Right? So you know not to be repetitive but if if you're looking at your market results on a daily basis you're probably not in the right uh right investment scheme if you will because you really need to look at things over longevity. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. Okay, so that's great. Um, the other thing I wanted to say was thanks to Mr. Scrimmer for getting the 72% number for us. And I think that's actually a very good number. I think that's a smart number. Uh, I'm hoping that it'll be higher than that, but I think it's actually prudent for us to take 72% as a as an idea in our heads anyways. I think it'll be better than that, but I don't have a crystal ball. Um the other thing I wanted to make mention and ask a question about is you know the service review working group for the past four years has worked hard. You know $252 million has been saved equivalent being 12% property tax increase that was avoided. Uh the agile government working group has also been very helpful. I'm wondering when you look at some of the ways we've been able to save money has that some of it at least in this budget update uh been due to some of that work? Mr. Mayor, yes, absolutely, 100%. I mean, those are all initiatives that, you know, you know, there's initiatives where we see real savings right at the top. Then there's initiatives that we see savings that kind of come through the process in terms of why we change our business process or change the way we approach things. So, 100% that has been, you know, one of the key things that helping us, you know, not only set a good budget, but sustain our budget throughout the year. >> Wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. I thought that was the case. Um, attached to this report is the capital works in progress. And I'm I'm really of two minds of this, but the capital works when you see it in a chart as you've displayed it, you know, you see all the individual projects. You don't see it by ward. Um, but if you did it by ward, it wouldn't fully be accurate, I don't think, because so many of those projects are interrelated to so many other wards, right? You fix a pipe in this ward, it actually fixes a problem in another ward. Um, but do you ever actually do that? um where it is very specifically something that is in a ward. You know, you think about a a community building or whatever um to see how much money is being spent in different wards. And I think about this when budget comes around, right? And you know, not to be parochial, but there is an element of fairness that residents ask for you know, oh, I see that this ward gets this, that, and the other. Why don't we, right? And as counselors, we have to answer those questions. But do you ever do that work or is it just not that helpful to do? >> Mr. Mayor, it's a great question. It's probably one of the the veins of my veins, I guess. I'll put it that way. So, we do try and provide that during the budget process. We, you know, our war by summaries. The challenge is as you said, like if I look at I'll pick on rope as an example. We make millions and millions of dollars worth investments in role. That role is in one ward. So if you're not in that ward, you feel like you're not getting money. But that rope infrastructure is supporting the entire city. So those are the the nuances of a capital project. Again, we have projects that could be a a road overlay that may start in one ward and finish off in another ward. So we, you know, for us to get into that minutia of administratively breaking that down, like that's just not even feasible. So that's the challenge that we have in those scenarios. We do our best again through the budget process to really draw out tease out those core investments, but a lot of our capital projects are what we deem citywide. So if you go through our budget documentation, we do have a ward category there, the majority or like a lot of the items are labeled citywide because they do support, you know, more than a ward. Even something as simple as a recreational facility. Yes, it may be in a ward, but many people from other WS are using that recreational facility as an example. So that's where it kind of becomes a little bit nuanced and tricky in terms of breaking it down that way. >> That's totally true. You know, the thing you think about the people who come to the Richcraft Center are coming from West Carlton, Stitzville, Canada, South, North, Richmond. You know, like I I see the difficulty in that. It's just so challenging when residents continually ask those types of questions and and argue that, you know, I pay a lot of tax dollars and why is it that I'm not seeing, you know, this that and the other and and I just wondered how much you actually do an analysis of that. And there is I think I think we've talked at this table before about you know an analysis that could be how much tax revenue is generated in that area based on how much is spent in that area. You know counselors have talked about that in the past but I I guess I would say as we go into next council that you know that is not as simple as uh sometimes I hear people talk about it but I I did want to get your take on that. So thank you very much for that. >> Okay. Thank you councelor Brockington. Thank you, mayor. Just I want to go back to the 72% wrership number just to clarify. Will that be the average for the year or what we end December 2026 with? >> Mr. Mayor, that's what the projection is for what the full year will be as a proportion of what the full year was before the pandemic. >> So, can I say average? So, uh, I would say a 12 month total rather than average because it'll be, you know, just, you can say average, but I wouldn't say average. >> Okay. Tomato tomato. Uh, Mr. Rogers, will you will you formulate a budget for 2027 on the 2026 average wrership number? Mr. mayor. So, we'll those are discussions that we'll be undertaking as we get into the budget process, working closely with, you know, Rick and the transit team. Uh, you know, there's a risk in doing that as well because that's that's a little bit conservative. So, let's say today we know we're at 67%. We should see an uptake and that's what the forecast is for the as the federal employees get back onto the system, as the transits, you know, customer first action plan gets more reliability. We've added more buses, reliability is on the uptake. So again, when you look at those nuances, we're going to have to do a deep dive analysis because, you know, if I go back to my 2026 budget process, we're finishing the year at 81 82%. Right? Then we've seen a dip. So now that's an anomaly that we're going to have to really work closely with Rick and his team to really understand where those trends are going. And I think that will be something we will bring back during the budget process. So it'll be a bit more detail in terms of you know is it a flatline 72% or is it you know one scenario would be 72% one scenario could be if we end the year ideally we're backing at 80% and things are running smoothly and good and that trajectory is there. So it's not going to be a one-off I think there's going to be a multitude of ridership scenarios and then you know in collaboration with the team we'll figure out what the best one is and when we come back we'll come back with those those scenarios for discussion so you have that information before you. >> Okay. No I appreciate that. Um, since 2020, our writership numbers and uh, fair revenues have been grossly overstated. And so I believe in being conservative when it comes to budgets. And uh, even if you kept the 2027 numbers as what we finished 2026 with, that may be too conservative, but I think it's it's better than what we've been struggling with. So does Mr. Scrimure, can OC Transpo accurately estimate the number of public servants taking public transit into 2027? Will you have do you think you'll have greater stability going forward? Uh, Mr. Mayor, our projections of the future can only be based on our observations from the past. Um so when we see what writership is in September, October and November, we'll be better informed and able to make predictions on what January, February, and on for the rest of next year would look like. Um we can't predict things that have not yet occurred. >> Well, budgets are predictions. We know what the cutbacks are going to be because they've announced them. We know what what the number of public service reductions in the NCR will be. And we know what the proportion of federal public servants are uh what the cohort is as a proportion of all riders just like postsecondary students. So if I had asurances that are we could accurately estimate our two largest cohorts because you can call the public service commission and universities and get some data for 2027. We know our efforts for hiring operators. We know our efforts for hiring mechanics. We know our efforts for obtaining new buses. all the all the main ingredients that factor into wrership, we should be able to better estimate for 2027 because we have much greater stability going into 2027 on some of the key factors that we were bleeding ridership. So when we talk about the 2027 budget five, six months from now, these are questions I'm going to be asking. What what work have we done to make sure these estimates are rock solid and much better? Um I just want to go back mayor to my last set of question that's just the overall budget as a whole and uh factors that may be pulling us one way or another and the downtown uh action plan or recovery plan had ambitious targets for a net increase in people working downtown and a net increase in the number of people living downtown. and the board of trade of course was the main driver behind this initiative. Uh what do we know about those two major ambitious targets for and I don't mean just bringing federal public servants downtown. I mean PE like new jobs, net increase in employment downtown, net increase in people residing downtown. Uh do we have any updates in this regard? Thank you >> Mr. Mayor. So, we have some uh stats in terms of um the downtown population. We do see an increase in population. So, in 2025, it increased by 2.2%. So, we're seeing more residents um living in the downtown area. Uh we also see a lot more activity from tourism. So, 2025 was really the strongest year ever on record. Um and 2026, although we don't have the stats, we're the the anecdotal evidence is that it's at least as good as that year. So, we'll get more information as those numbers are released. In terms of uh jobs, I don't have numbers to report to you today. We do know that office vacancies are higher than last year. So, that does signal that there may be fewer jobs. Um, and we'll have to see the impact in terms of uh you know more in office presence for PE federal public servants. And just for clarification, what is the normal timelines for reporting these metrics to council? >> Mr. Mayor, we report those when we come back with the update on the economic um development strategy, which tends to be in the first quarter of every year. >> Perfect. Thanks very much. Thanks, Mayor. >> Thank you, Councelor King. Uh thank you, your worship. But just in the vein of um and and of course uh thank you for to staff for the report uh but just in the vein of transit reliability. Uh the report cites uh bus reliability issues at the start of the year as a factor in ridership underperformance while also noting marked improvements in reliability to date. I'm just wondering if Pat can address uh what is the current status of bus reliability improvements referenced in the report and how are on time performance metrics trending month over month uh since January. Mr. Mayor, both of those numbers are uh considerably better now than they were in the early part of the year. Uh the bus fleet reliability um has got remarkably uh better with the receipt of the new buses and the retirement of the worst of the old buses. Um the on-time performance for the first seven eight routes, the first seven routes that we uh adjusted the schedules for, as we reported, I think at the June transit commission meeting, we showed how those numbers had got considerably better. Uh we had one more route that we uh fixed up the schedule in June and then we had 22 that we fixed up starting yesterday. Uh so we'll be collecting data on those. We will not be in a position to report on those 22 routes at the trans commission next week, but we will certainly be showing the overall uh reliability numbers and um they're they're much much better in August and in July than they were in the winter. Um, we'll be monitoring to see whether we can sustain that positive view on things through the fall with the uh what we presume will be the higher levels of traffic congestion on the roads. >> And I'm assuming that the new uh KPIs that uh the general manager uh spoke about uh will encapsulate uh monitoring the uh bus reliability. >> Yes, they do. and we'll have those to the trans committee next week. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you, Councelor Leaper. >> Thank you very much. Um, just one of the numbers I saw in the report really struck me, which is I think it said that there is the entire capital program that is currently underway, which I assume means um, you know, authority has been voted, uh, is worth I think 16.4 billion. So, there's currently $16.4 4 billion worth of capital. And I I'm thinking about that in the context of our $10.4 billion infrastructure gap. And it's a great illustration of how challenging it is going to be able to to fill that gap uh when all of the work that we have combined underway right now is uh is already 16 odd billion dollars. I'm just wondering, can you give me an idea of how much of that is being paid of our capital program is being paid for through DC's and how much of it through taxes and how much other sources? Well, Mr. Mayor, I have to that's one I have to take away and get back to you. I can get back to you quickly on that, but in my head, I don't have that because again, it's different for every project, right? So, we do have a you know, we obviously have a lot of projects. We have over 17 if you were to count them. I think we have over 1,700 projects on the go at any given time. Uh obviously there's you know spending occurs at different times. The important thing is you know we provide this for information purposes. The capital closure report is the key report where we do a cleanup every year on annual basis and also goes back to when I presented the tax RFP a couple months ago in terms of you know continue to make more investments but making sure that we can spend the investments that we're making as well. Right. So you kind of touched on a key point there. We, you know, I'm not just going to give more money to have more money sit there. We need to make sure we can spend the money and deliver the outcomes. So, you know, you're kind of touching on a key point there because we do have a very, very large capital works in progress program. Many projects have different phases. You know, we have, you know, almost thousands 2,000 or so projects. So, you can see the complexity, but I can certainly get a breakdown in terms of uh the funding. We do normally provide that donut in our uh capital budget. Uh so in terms of our funding so if you look at our capital budget documents we talk about uh I think 2026 was $ 1.92 billion worth of capital investments and then the next slide and the next document that we have in our budget magazine we kind of show the breakdown of the DC funding uh the cash etc and the reserves. Uh so that's one stop you can get pretty quick but I will follow up with you in terms of the actual breakdown of all that. Yeah, I'd be I'd be interested in of course where you do your capital close um those funds go back to source uh which is uh which is important. Have you started to take a look yet at at what the quantum of that capital close might be at the end of this year? So, Mr. Mayor, we bring we bring a closure report in June every year. So, that that's basically the timing we do that cleanup. So, we brought that forward uh just a couple months ago to Finn Corp. So, that's an annual process that we do in June. It works well in June because when we go through the budget process, we're kind of looking at what we have in scope and what we can invest more in. But then, you know, you get to that owner's process, then we move into cleanup. So, so June is the the time frame that we report back on on the closures. >> So, we'll wait for that. The um I I'm just taking a look at some of the projects in my ward that, you know, we we all know are done. There's not going to be any further work and there's some significant um uh capital closure uh opportunities there. So, >> but but just on that, Mr. if you will. You know, a lot of these times the project may be done, but there could be outstanding warranty issues or items that we we kind of trickle on. So, that's an area that we also keep a pulse on because the work could be done, but there still could be like a one, two-year time frame in terms of truly closing off the contractual obligations, if you will. >> Sure. >> So, that those scenarios are also holding true. So, when you do look at it, just think about that in terms of, oh, that that project is done, but it may not be, you know, entirely done. physically it may be done but the project itself may not be done. >> I'll uh follow up on a couple in my ward with uh with Dan some uh some parks and stuff. Okay. Uh and yeah, I would be uh interested in taking a look at of that total $16.4 billion capital program uh that breakdown between DC other and uh and tax. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you. Just before uh we wrap up on this, I just had a couple of questions and clarifications. So just on the transit deficit and uh how the uh upload and uh you know how that all fits together uh just to be clear and and as well using our reserves. But um we have been increasing the transit budget by a larger than normal amount over the past couple of years with the intent of over time closing uh the transit deficit. Correct. >> Uh Mr. Mayor, correct? The last two were 8% and 8% 2625 as an example. >> Yeah. And the the objective was and I remember you laying this out uh to council but also to uh the long-range financial plan working group for transit um that we were going to continue to potentially have some deficits if we didn't receive other funding from other levels of government. we were going to continue to have deficits, but by increasing the transit levy by a larger than normal amount on an annual basis over a period of time that we would have the opportunity to close that gap. And since our reserves were at the time above the what we deemed the acceptable range and that's what the reserves were there for, we could if needed and if we didn't get funding from other levels of government, we could draw on those reserves. Um, and obviously we can't do that forever, but that's why we've been increasing the transit levy by a larger than normal amount every year so that eventually we close the gap using that. Correct. >> Correct, Mr. Mayor. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. So, uh, is that item received? >> All right. We are going to move in camera now and I will ask uh, Vice Chair Kits to read the memo to move in camera. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Be it resolved that the finance and corporate services committee resolve in camera pursuant to subsection 131A of the procedure bylaw as the subject matter relates to the security of the property of the city to receive a presentation on cyber security and the external threat landscape which is confidential and will not be reported out. >> Is that carried? >> Thank you. We'll resume as quickly as possible in camera. Thank you. Sound check. Okay, we're going to start again in one minute. All right, we will resume and for the benefit of those joining us, the finance and corporate services committee just met in camera in order to receive an update on cyber security and the external threat landscape. These matters will not be reported out as they relate to subsection 131A of the procedure bylaw being the security of the property of the city. During the inc camera session, no votes were taken other than procedural motions andor directions to staff. Um, all right. Are there any notices of motion? Any inquiries? Any other business? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just note the information previously distributed that's on the agenda under item 8.1. All right. Motion to adjurnn. Is that carried? >> Thank you everyone. Me