The Town's target is to keep our Operating budget within 0-3% (surplus) of our annual approved budget.

This metric measures how closely the actual operating expenditures track to the Council approved operating budget each year.

Once the year-end data is available, staff will calculate the percent variance between the actual operating expenditures and the approved budget.

An accurate forecast is an important tool used to manage the Council approved operating budget. It enables prudent management of resources that will ensure the Municipality's fiscal health and responsible use of taxpayer funds.

This ensures the Town is able to provide essential services to our residents and allocate our resources efficiently, in order to reduce the impact on tax levy.

This result indicates that operating activities that occurred during 2024 ended in a favourable position to budget, reflecting the Town’s commitment to continued financial sustainability. Some of the larger factors impacting the year end results included increased bank and investment income, penalty and interest charges on arrears, and surplus funds being carried over from 2023. This was partially offset by increased wages and benefit costs from market evaluations and collective agreement renewals, increased transit costs, and increased costs to maintain town assets. Further information related to the year end results can be found in staff report DSR-074-25.

Target is to achieve an average annualized return of 3% on the Town’s total investment portfolio

The annual return rate is measured by calculating the change in the value of the Town's total investment portfolio over a set period of time.

This return is comprised of the increase (or decrease) in the market value of an investment plus any interest, dividends, or capital gains paid on it during the calendar year.

The total amount of these returns is then divided by the amount of the investment at the start of the year to calculate the annualized rate of return.

The annual return percentage is used to evaluate the performance of our investment portfolio, enabling the Town to manage risk and work towards achieving our short and long-term financial objectives.

Any realized gains enable us to continue to improve the service offerings we provide to our residents, while limiting the need to increase to our tax levy.

On June 24, 2020 Council approved the Prudent Investor (PI) Enabling By-law, officially opting into the PI regime with an effective date of July 2, 2020.

Being part of ONE Joint Investment Board has provided the Town access to a network of professional investment advisors. Their expertise enables us to balance our current (short-term) operational and capital funding requirements, with our long-term funding needs while still maintaining adequate liquidity for the Town.

The positive returns over the last several years, especially through long periods of low interest rates and global economic instability, indicates that our investment strategy is achieving its objective using returns to keep the tax levy lower.

The Town’s maximum debt repayment limit is not to exceed 20% of the Town’s own source revenues.

The amount of debt the Town can issue is set at 20% of the Town’s own source revenues, which excludes revenues such as upper-level government grants, development charges, gains or losses on disposal of assets and revenues from other municipalities.

The total annual debt payment, comprised of the annual principal plus the interest accrued, is then divided by the Town’s own source revenues, resulting in the percentage shown here.

The Municipal Act, as amended, provides the authority and imposes restrictions concerning a municipality’s ability to issue debt, such that annual principal and interest payments cannot exceed 25% of own source revenues.

We have taken a more conservative approach and defined that our maximum debt repayment limit (Annual Repayment Limit) will not exceed 20% of the Town’s own source revenues to maintain up to 5% flexibility to address emergency issues.

The Town continues to keep its level of debt well below the Town policy and Provincial legislated limits, which will ensure financial sustainability while maintaining a degree of flexibility to address emerging financial needs.