Good evening. I would like to call the Budget Committee meeting of November 5th, 2025 to order. Good evening. Good evening everyone. My name is Adam Russell, Councilor and Chair of the Budget Committee. I would like to begin by reading a safety notice. In the event of emergency, please evacuate council chambers. We do have a lot of fans here tonight. So please go out to a single file. To the nearest exit through the chamber doors and obey all instructions given if assistance is required. Please see.
Once you evacuate the building, please gather in the front parking lot outside of town hall. Also, please ensure your cell phones are all silent or are turned off.
And lastly, the Town of Lincoln Council meetings are posted on our YouTube channel. Close captioning is available on all videos by selecting a closed captioning button on the bottom right of the video.
I roll call members of committee are in attendance and we also have staff in attendance. Decorations of interest are the ring decorations of interest.
Seeing none, we have no statutory public meetings, we have no delegations, and we have no consent agenda items.
So we are now moving on to a regular agenda and we are now considering item 7.1 report fn-12-25.
2026 budget staff will be presenting the draft 2026 capital budget for committee's consideration under the strong mayor budget process.
The mayor is going to provide some introductory comments. Follow by our CAO. May you rest in. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Good evening council members and staff members of the public who are who are viewing.
Thank you very much for joining us as we begin our 2025 budget deliberations.
This is our first budget under the new strong mayor of legislation.
And while the tools available to us may have changed the priorities and values that guide our decisions have not.
And I instructed staff to begin the budget process using the same methodology that they have used for the last 11 years.
And to continue in the same manner as I believe that what we have been doing.
Mostly presents information and priorities according to our mission vision and values as well as strategic priorities and the work plan that has been developed for us.
This is a process that involves council but it also involves stakeholders throughout Lincoln and beyond as there are many people that do business with and in our community.
And so everyone has a stake in what is going to be discussed here this evening and any other meetings following it.
The budget recognizes the financial pressures that many residents and businesses continue to face and it reflects our commitments to being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.
At the same time it invests strategically in both our immediate needs and our long-term priorities as a growing community.
Tonight you will hear from members of the senior leadership team as they walk us through the key components of the budget with a particular focus on the capital program.
We are approaching this budget with the same principles of transparency, planning and accountability that have guided council in previous years even as the governance framework evolves.
There is an amending formula that is available to council and the amending formula is the council's opportunity to make any changes that they believe are necessary.
And based on the interpretation, their interpretation of the public priorities which have been laid out quite well not only in this presentation this evening which came from a formal question error but also from all the other comments and commentary that come to each and every member of council throughout the year so it's not just a focus on a few months in the fall of the year.
And I must say that I was quite pleased to see the number of participants but also the very, very clear effort that people have put into grouping priorities and and to being very clear about what those are so that that is this council to a great very get great extent.
So while the amending formulas allow council the opportunity to have a second look from what they have been given by the staff, they will also have to take into account the impact of any changes that are made because the community is accustomed to a certain level of standard.
And so any impact will have to be discussed in terms of how it may change the timing or the lack of timing when services are delivered.
You will hear specifically about areas such as fire services, community engagement, critical capital infrastructure as those areas have specifically been broken out.
These areas and all capital investments ensure that we can continue to deliver safe, reliable and high quality services while preparing for the future.
I want to thank staff for the work that has gone into preparing this budget.
And I look forward to the discussions ahead as we continue working together to build a strong affordable and sustainable Lincoln. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.
Thank you Mayor Easton and I believe our CAO has in the comments as well.
Thank you Mr. Chair and good evening Madam Mayor chair Russell, Vice Chair Rimer and members of council as we kick off this year's budget process.
And I feel like I say this to you every year but budget is your round work. It isn't something we just deal with at the end of each year.
And it is critical in terms of how we set priorities managed resources responsibly and ensure that financial sustainability of our municipality remains at the forefront.
The decisions we make here will have direct and important impacts.
We're discussing capital tonight as you've seen our budget and the budget information that you've received today will include a lot of the operating conversations.
And we're going to talk about other things tonight. We're going to talk about fire services and some of the drivers there. We're going to talk a little bit about engagement.
And we're going to talk about how we look at all of that moving forward.
There are a number of large scale issues that we're all dealing with and that people are dealing with and many not in our control and we don't lose sight of that.
I know council doesn't lose sight of that but they are things that we're cognizant of and aware of as you've heard.
The process has changed a bit. The timelines are condensed. We're looking at things this year differently, but the one thing that hasn't changed is that we're going to work closely with council.
We're going to attempt to answer any questions both during the meetings after the meetings and before the subsequent meetings.
And ensure that we communicate information and decisions clearly openly and a timely manner.
As you've heard from the mayor tonight, you're going to hear from a number of us.
I'll be presenting the engagement information to you. Director Graham will be talking a little bit about our capital program.
Fire Chief Greg Hudson is going to take you into some of the drivers in terms of the fire budget.
And of course, CLT is here to answer any particular questions that council may have.
So as we do every year, I encourage council to approach the process thoughtfully collaboratively.
And it is our goal, as I've said before, to ensure that every dollar allocated supports council priorities, addresses the community priorities you're going to hear about shortly.
And also reflects the responsible stewardship of public resources. So look forward to getting into the details, Mr. Chair.
And I'll turn it over to you again.
Thank you, Mr. CAO.
The Director Finance Treasure will begin the presentation.
For the first half of the presentation, after each presenter, we will stop for a Q&A period before continuing on to the next section.
We will then have a short recess before the second half of the presentation.
Just a reminder for all council.
If you are referencing capital projects within any of your questions, please use the binder and make sure you illustrate or mention the page number.
It's on and also the project number when you're asking your questions.
So everybody's working on the same information.
Director Tuna Kitis, please go ahead.
Thank you, Chair.
Well, I'm thankful to be here tonight to present to you the first meeting of the 2026 budget.
What will we be discussing today?
We'll do a reminder of the budget process for 2026 review the budget engagement results.
And then we'll go through the 2026 capital budget overview including the renewal programs in each area of the budget.
And then finally we'll talk about asset management, asset management plan and the infrastructure gap.
And then finally we'll just do a recap on the budget schedule.
So as a reminder, where are we in the process?
On October 28th, the mayor started the budget process.
When the agenda was published online, the budget became public information.
And we are now in the budget deliberation period.
During this time, councilors may propose amendments to the budget from October 28th to November 24th.
To streamline the process, the meeting tonight will focus on capital and then the November 12th meeting next week will focus on operating.
Amendments can be proposed on November 5th, November 12th or November 24th if applicable.
So by that we mean, if you have amendments that you wish to propose about the capital budget, that can still come forward at next week's meeting.
Just in case there are questions about that tonight, because you may get more information tonight that may lead you down that road.
If there are no additional amendments received for the November 24th meeting by November 14th, the November 24th meeting will be canceled.
So if staff have no indication that there are any further amendments coming forward, we'll look at everything that's coming at that point in time and then the clerk will go through that and make that determination.
The staff have provided a budget amendment request form template and those amendments must be submitted in writing to the clerk and each amendment will be considered individually.
So as a recap tonight, we'll talk about the budget survey and engagement results, the capital presentation and other incillary information which for this evening is particularly a presentation from a fire chief.
On the November 12th meeting, we will go over the operating presentation and the library presentation and we have requested the amendment forms for that meeting by November 7th.
So this Friday to give us time to review from calculations, provide comment and process those forms and then the November 24th budget amendment meeting if required.
We would just review the amendments and if there are no amendments, the meeting would be canceled.
Again, we're requesting those forms by November 14th because that's the time when it will a determination will be made if that meeting is necessary.
If there are no amendments, the budget would be deemed adopted after November 24th.
So after that agreed upon deliberation period, which is legislated but council agreed to shorten by a couple of days, that's when the budget would be deemed adopted.
After that time if there are amendments on December 2nd could potentially be a mayoral veto.
If there are amendments and if the mayor vetoes an amendment, which we do not know whether either one of those things will happen, the veto would be provided in writing with reasons to the clerk and council.
If there are no vetoes, so meaning if there are amendments that come forward and they are not vetoed, then the budget would be deemed adopted after December 2nd.
So at each stage in the process, it's deemed adopted if that timeline lapses and there's nothing else that leads it to the next step of the process.
If the mayor, if there are amendments which are vetoed by the mayor, then on December 15th council meeting, that's when council could vote on whether to override the veto with a vote of two thirds of council.
If the process has progressed to an override vote, the budget would be deemed adopted after December 5th either as amended or not.
Throughout that process, if there are amendments there could be a combination of outcomes, depending whether the amendments pass, whether they are vetoed and whether the vetoes are overwritten.
So with that, this is the overview of our timeline and we've placed a red circle where we're at today on November 5th, where at the capital budget meeting and we're pretty much right at the start of all the budget deliberation meetings.
So at this time, I'll turn it back over to the chair if there are any questions on this portion.
The presentation. Thank you, Director Tuna Curtis. Any questions from Council?
Oh, we've got Council to make a look up first. Go ahead.
Hey there. Thank you, Chair Russell, through you to Charlotte. Just a question about ratification.
And I'm reading the word adoptive adoption. But I'm not seeing ratification. So what's council's role like it?
At some point there must be a bylaw that's approved or not approved by council.
I think it's a tax levy increase. There would be a tax levy increase amount bylaw that we would have to approve. Is that still applicable?
And one of that occur. Okay. I guess two questions for one.
So through you chair to the councilor. So that is a key change of the strong marijuana legislation. It's something that we've been reviewing even in some of the professional webinars that I've been attending.
The wording now is no longer approval. It's adopted. So there isn't a vote of approval.
And I see the clerk looking at me. I'm sure she will step in if I say anything. But we've both been to our fair share of webinars at this point in time.
There is no longer a vote of approval. It's just when that time period lapses. It's deemed adopted at that point in time.
So if there are no amendments, it's deemed adopted as provided by the mayor.
If there are amendments and she does not veto, it's deemed adopted as amended and so on.
We would still need a levy bylaw. And that usually happens not until early next year when we have the region rates.
And we have the school board rates and all of those things, but the budget process itself. It just kind of goes through those timelines and then when they finish, it's deemed to be an adopted budget.
Okay, so just to clarify. So theoretically, if a counselor was not in favor of the levy increase, they could vote against that levy increase at that time.
When you have the sum of all expenses and sum of all estimations and the sum of all everything, theoretically, there's still an opportunity for a council member to vote against that levy increase.
So through you chair, if it's okay, I would turn it over to the clerk on that procedural matter because that's a little bit hard to understand how that would process if we followed those procedures, but that's not one I can answer on my own.
So I would say that Charlotte has explained the budget process perfectly in terms of the bylaw itself.
That would be something that if I'm understanding correctly, like you could put through a vote, if it fails, I believe the American have a say in that matter, but essentially, I mean,
the budget is adopted as presented, that's how it's going to play out in terms of the levy bylaw.
My understanding is that council would have a vote like they always do, that doesn't change, but I don't know.
I really, I don't know, this is our first time, but to my understanding that the mayor would have a say in that.
So just the point of clarification, is that something that we can come back to council with at the next meeting and just clarify?
We can, I'm, I would say that, yeah, I don't have an answer for that at this time.
It'll be interesting, but I do believe that the vote is still the vote in terms of the bylaw.
Mr. CAO has a comment.
Three of you, Mr. Chair, maybe I'll add one piece just to kind of clarify for anybody who's watching and even for members of council, as you heard from both our treasurer and the clerk, there's three parts to that.
There's the education portion, the regional portion, and maybe I'll highlight those two, you don't have a say on those two.
What the region does, what the education, what the province does through the education level, you also don't have a say on.
So to suggest maybe not voting for those, I think, well, it may be a symbolic gesture.
I don't think you're able to actually do that.
So in the levying bylaw comes together to approve all three.
Again, you may want to make a symbolic gesture, but I don't think it actually holds, you know, it holds merit.
We can definitely try to get an interpretation on that for you and make sure council has it.
But your opportunity to either put an amendment forward to voice, displeasure, or anything otherwise happens with the process that we've outlined to you with respect to the one that we're in control of.
As council has heard me say many, many times, but a third of our third of the budget, third of what you're going to approve there is ours.
The other two thirds falls between the other two levels.
So again, I think it can be a symbolic gesture, but I don't actually think it holds ground and is legally binding, but that's one of those things we can get back to you between now and our next meeting.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
As I said, I just I'm curious, like, how that process or how that procedure works, as far as council's role or council's ability to.
Vote and I think that yeah, like as I mentioned, I think there's a bylaw living bylaw that has to be approved and.
It's it's yes, no or abstain. So I don't know how other municipalities, if it's ever come up before or if it's ever been an issue, but.
You know, I'm not saying we're going to be the first, but I like to know the questions to answers before the, you know, you cross the bridges. Thank you.
Yeah, no, it was a good question. Again, we are going through this for the first time on our side. So we are going to be learning all the machinations of what the requirements are.
But again, if there is a clarification that staff can bring back for the next meeting, they can otherwise that we will move forward as a as planned council timers your next.
Thank you, Chair, through you to Ms. Tuna Curtis.
So I asked this question before, but I just want to have a little bit of clarity.
So when someone wants to put an amendment in so tonight there are no amendments because we're just having a first look, but at the next meeting if there are amendments.
And maybe this is for Madam Clerk as well, would they be included in the agenda for the next meeting so that all of council sees what the amendments are.
I think I've asked this, I just want to clarify it.
Good afternoon, guys.
I'll start and through you chair and if the clerk would like to jump in, she can.
So yes, this is part of why we've asked for the amendments to be provided to us by the Friday before, so that staff have time to calculate.
Provide any operational comments on the impact of that and then the intention is to publish them on the agenda and ensure that all of council has them.
So that is part of the reason why we propose the the process like that.
I'm not sure if the clerk wants to add, no, she's shaking.
That's okay.
That's clear. I just wanted to be sure and so no amendments can just be put on the table at the meeting.
These amendments must be put in writing on the form prior.
So we're not going to be accepting any fly amendments.
Madam Clerk, you have a comment?
Through you chair to the Councillor.
So as we presented previously, the reason why we've asked council to kind of follow this structured process in terms of providing those amendments earlier is so that the justification that is for those amendments.
We can come prepared to council and explain that if council chooses to put forward amendments at this table.
I cannot guarantee council that you will have those answers or that break down of information on how that does affect the budget going forward.
It's in council's best interest to do those ahead of times in order to ensure that the public as well as council are making informed decisions and the public is also informed of what that looks like in terms of the budget process.
So sure that don't know if you want to add anything else to that.
That's that's very clear and I'm quite happy with that with that new process, so thank you very much.
Thank you chair.
Okay, thanks Councillor Timbers.
I see no other questions back to Councillor Timnikitis for part two.
Director Tunikitis for the next portion.
Thank you chair.
So at this time, I'm going to turn this over to our CAO and he is going to provide some commentary.
On the 2026 budget engagement and so I'll turn it over to you sir.
Thank you, Charlotte and three of us chair to members of council.
I will be taking you through our 2026 budget engagement.
It is an opportunity for us to look at some of the information that's come through.
By no means is I think as I said to you in my opening comments the engagement that we receive here the only engagement we get we do get engagement year around.
And I think we can all agree that that's an opportunity for us to hear priorities.
It's an opportunity for us to take that information in and then using other data sets that we have come to you with information relative to this budget.
I recognize though that engagement results such as survey data often do attract criticism.
We've heard it around this very table.
It did enough people weigh in.
What do people think were the questions written right?
I've probably been doing this here for 10 years and the previous 15 before that heard all sorts of levels of criticism.
We often look at how many people weigh into our budget survey.
Determine is that statistically correct?
Is it not?
What does it mean?
How do we get more people?
I share that I think to say to you that again you've heard me say it before it is a snapshot.
It's one tool that we have.
I can say we had over 100 residents at the most recent word meeting.
That's engagement too.
People talk to us about all sorts of issues in terms of what matters to them.
So a survey as a snapshot today we received information from our partners at the chamber representing over 280 businesses.
That in and of itself is also a level of engagement.
So while survey results are maybe not what all council oftentimes likes to see in terms of thousands and thousands of people weighing in and what they think about budget.
It is again a snapshot that I'm going to take you through.
So we do have a dedicated page on speak up Lincoln relative to this budget as we've had in the past.
We do share key updates and key dates on there.
We put up budget presentations.
We share infographics.
It does also have as it highlights here information from previous years budget.
Page visits this year.
So a little bit of data in terms of what we saw.
We did see an increase of about 17% in terms of how many people visited it.
Now visiting it doesn't mean people took the survey.
It just means we had over a thousand people look at it.
Maybe to get some information.
Maybe to see some dates.
We also saw people open videos.
Look at the documents.
And just as I said read the information that's on the page.
We did look at a little bit of an engagement strategy that was enhanced from previous years.
It ran from August to the beginning of October.
And not only did it have the survey as we've done in years past.
But we also had a budget prioritization tool.
Hearing what council said last year.
We wanted to try something a little bit different.
We did have hard copy surveys available throughout Lincoln facilities.
Because again as we hear at word meetings and otherwise people get information in different ways.
We also did some in-person engagement.
We had postcards for councilors to hand out when you were at various events.
And we also had our director and other staff at Flingoff King on September 27th.
Handing out and talking to people and trying to get them to talk about budget.
If you did share with me today that not everybody who comes up to the booth wanted to talk budget.
Some people just wanted to know everything from where they get a driver's license to a whole bunch of other things.
And those are the same things we get when people walk into our building.
Not everybody understands government the way we do.
Not everybody understands or is open to sharing kind of what they think on a bunch of fronts.
A lot of people want to talk about services.
If you ask someone do you pay too much in taxes, usually get an answer like yes.
I'd like to pay less in taxes.
So it was an interesting exercise in terms of that in-person engagement.
And we did see a spike in visits following that at least on the following two days.
In terms of promotion we often get asked if we promote it.
Did we encourage people to take part.
Here's a list of all the things we did do.
As I said we did a bit of a digital media campaign this year which was new.
We used social media, we used monitors in town facilities, QR codes,
bill-inserts, community newsletters, print media and so forth.
In terms of participation.
As you can see here 211 participants between the budget prioritization tool, the survey and the comment for.
Some information in terms of the past three budgets, in terms of responses.
And again, typical as you've seen in the past members of council in terms of the breakdown on where people are coming from that fill out our survey.
The majority are respondents from Beamsville followed by violent and violent station.
And then lastly at around 10% from Jordan and Jordan station.
Budget survey, satisfaction.
And priorities. Do you receive value for your tax dollar? Generally speaking, when we talk about service, when we talk about value, and those two things really are synonymous with one another, little over three quarters of people at a positive response.
Where would you like to see investments made? As you can see there, the top five responses probably align very much to what you see in the capital program.
Public works and public and open spaces, which includes our parks.
We often hear that when we're talking to residents or at public meetings, when we're at ward meetings. Obviously infrastructure.
I wish I could tell you, or had a dollar for every time someone said, you know, do more roads, pave my road.
Obviously something we hear a lot about in terms of infrastructure and capital costs.
If I ask you service, again, you're going to hear a little bit more about that this evening, planning and municipal law enforcement.
Again, when we talk about municipal law enforcement, you know, surprise the members of council, everyone would love to see a lot more of those sorts of things.
And lastly, a focus on tourism, culture, communications and economic development.
The council had a chance to read the letter that came in today. Again, from our partners at the chamber, it did speak to jobs.
It spoke to retention of businesses. It spoke to supports for businesses, which again, I think, aligns very much to where it falls in terms of the top five.
Which council priorities should be addressed in terms of the 2020 six by six.
You can see there are the top four responses and a lot of ways aligned to the top five in terms of where investments are being made and where we should see investments.
And so safe, healthy and environmentally responsible community, investing in our parks, transportation.
Responsible financial management and collaboration with other levels of government and forced the fourth one there engage in inclusivity and transparency.
We also included a question similar to one from last year's budget survey that talked about if you were going to contribute an extra $50 to help in to help enhance a program or service that was meaningful to you.
Are you in favor of that option or not in favor of that option, 73% of people answered that, 27% chose to skip it.
For those who replied, the top three services that they would like to see continued investment in our as follows there.
Again, very much aligning to what we're hearing to what you're seeing in this capital program, public works, which is really our roads, public and open spaces, which is our parks.
Fire rescue service and generally infrastructure and more capital.
In terms of our budget prioritization tool, you see a couple of photos there on the right side of the screen in terms of how we allowed people and we gave them hypotheticals how they would like to see their money spent.
So chance for us to look at and to give people maybe a little bit more of a tool where they could take some control.
So we gave them a hypothetical $100 budget and then participants allocated dollars to various service areas.
There were minimums and maximums that were predetermined with set increments and no area could be allocated a zero dollar.
115 contributions to this exercise were made with the average spend being less than the $100 they were given at little over 93 dollars.
A minimum spend we saw of 64 or people dial back and wanted to do less work with a maximum spend of the entire 100 they were given.
Again, probably no surprise when you look at the top five service areas that people funded using this tool, fire and rescue service, the library, community services, infrastructure and capital, and the top five being rounded out by the BDSSI.
There's always comment forms available on our on our cheats on our engagement 26 comments of the 200 change that had an opportunity to do so we're provided so not a lot.
And several key themes emerged are two allowed us to kind of highlight what some of those key themes were.
So we heard obviously on both ends of that spectrum we hear things like, you know, invest more money in libraries, we love libraries too.
We hate you and a whole bunch of other things and that is sometimes the anonymity that comes with these types of tools and so no I'm not sharing with you that type of information.
I'm sharing with you are the themes that came out obviously affordability being the largest and darkest is the one that came out, but some other interesting ones for us Jordan Lions pool.
Also a large font here which I think speaks to where people put some other priorities the library as well followed by again you can see the various words their low rise development diversify the economy infrastructure public safety support businesses farm farm came out a lot and municipal law enforcement.
So open a question, comments any clarity council may have obviously Paul and the Liana who are much more hands on and this are here to answer any questions you may have, but I can also attempt to do that as well.
Thank you, Mr. Sayo, I want to open up to a question council. I have council for today first in the hopper.
Thank you chair Russell, so Mr. CEO, just just a couple very quick high level comments and like there's nothing there's no hidden gun here.
So on one of the slides early in your presentation you showed beamsville at 66% and then you showed violent violent station Jordan and Jordan station.
I didn't see any reference that came to an intern.
I was just wondering does that mean that no one from came to an intern comment or was it put into another category.
Thank you Councillor and through you chair to the Councillor. We might have just had a very small percentage of Camden I think we might have not just presented it in the presentation.
But we did we did have representation from across across the community.
Okay.
Thank you. Just a follow up question on the slides Mr. CEO.
So I was happy to see the increase in the amount of visitors. I think it was 1,400 visitors up I think 17%. So that was great.
I'm just wondering when we look out how did we capture those comments because I think there's some great wording up there from affordability to we don't like you.
But the 26 I'm just concerned about why is it 26 we got 1,400 people touching our website which is great.
But how did we go to look at ascertaining comments.
So through you Mr. Chair to the Councillor. Definitely let Lilliana chime and I know I fill out a number of surveys on my mask to do some of my voluntarily do.
You know I think often it's easier to kind of check off a box than it is to take the time. Sometimes the analytical time it takes the right of response.
And to write one that's fruitful one that talks about affordability or one that talks about here's what I think about the Jordan Lions pool.
And so you know I think it's often one of those things that we don't always expect residents to spend time to add the anecdotal piece to it one that we would love to see more of.
But at the end of the day 26 is what we've got we've tried to encourage that dialogue more.
But as to why maybe Lilliana can chime in but I you know I would say I think again being one that fills out a lot of surveys.
I don't often spend a ton of time on the anecdotal piece. I really fill out the survey in terms of what questions are asked for me because people are challenged with time.
The surveys already take 15 to 20 minutes.
And unless you're really engaged in budget and if I think about the word to meeting how many times you encounter picture you've tried to progress.
It's even ask a question around budget at that particular meeting. I look at Councillor Russell our chair nodding same thing people often.
It is in an immediate focus versus something else that we engage with them on but definitely something that we can continue to try to ascertain and pull out but Lilliana may have some additional comments.
Thank you through you chair to the Councillor. What we did this year with the engagement tools and the CAOs spoke to it early on in the section of the presentation.
We sectioned out the different engagement tools so whereas in previous years we had a very quite lengthy survey we looked at ways to chunk that out so that there were a few different tools.
People could come in they were kind of shorter more bite sized engagement opportunities so people could you know they wouldn't get caught up in a really long survey.
That was some of the feedback that we heard in previous years.
So the comment form was actually separated out from the survey. In previous years we would have comments as part of the survey so we would have like an open-ended question.
People could provide comments on what else they wanted to see as part of the budget. This year we just brought that out as a separate tool.
So in previous years we wouldn't necessarily have comments or that those qualitative answers included like those were optional.
They were optional questions and we would not have everyone who participated in the survey answering that question.
So that's why you're going to see that the number of comments is lower than the participation in the survey or the prioritization tool.
Also that the word cluster represents some of the key themes and you see like some of the words we're a little bit bigger than others and that's where the themes were represented over several comments.
Yeah that's great. I appreciate those comments. I just you know the only reason I bring it up is you know I think we can all agree that we want to continue to improve.
And it's great that we're celebrating you know the number of visitors to our site and it's up 17 percent.
But I mean that could be Councillor Meckler jumping on our site a thousand times. So I you know I don't I'm just saying I would rather see comments that are are you know that have substance as I go into budget.
And when I look up there and I see the word affordability in bold that sends me a message. Thank you chair.
Thank you Councillor Bernay. Councilor Gemma you are up next.
Thank you chair. Russell my question about the fact that 66% of the respondents were from beams fell.
So is that just strictly because of a higher population density or is there other considerations that go into those percentages.
I mean all again I'll take a stab at the answer I think you're absolutely correct Councillor. Part of it is population based but part of it is just how people engage.
I would say in beamsville there are probably more people apt to use if you look at the demographics if you look at a number of other factors are probably apt to use technology.
Social media get their information electronically and would engage in that type of survey. Yes we've made it available in all of our facilities for those that wanted to fill out a hard copy.
But I think most of it's simply based on the fact that that's where our population is and oftentimes historically we've seen a little bit more engagement from the beamsville area.
I can tell you though that if you ask me where people like to engage the most face the face I'd probably tell you it's on the east end of town.
Some of the most spirited conversations I have with people on budget and other issues come from our Jordan and violent parts of the community and so I think it's just the way in which people engage the way in which people receive information.
And like I said the survey is a snapshot. The survey is one tool not the only tool that we're using.
Thank you.
Thank you Councillor Gema. We have Councillor Maria next.
Thank you very much. I think this is probably going to go to the communications department.
I'm really excited to see that it's a 17% increase in page visits which is great.
We've heard a lot over the last year about communications and the challenges around communications and people feeling that you know they're not hearing what's going on.
So it's great to see that there's an increase in engagement.
I have a couple of questions. One of them would be, what do you think is driving that increase? What tools do we use this year that drove a 17?
Like are we thinking it's the postcards that we sent or what that was.
I'll let you answer that one first before I go to my next question.
Through your chair to the Councillor. So it was definitely Charlotte being at Fling off King.
But I think it was a multitude of reasons really. It was that first in person in person touch that we had.
It was the print that we had. It was the postcards. It was the digital. I think we continued to do a multifaceted approach.
We give people the opportunity to engage.
And that's really good. I just want to, you know, lessons learned so that at the next thing that comes up that we want to make sure we're getting a lot of engagement.
We're using the same things that are successful so that that 17% can continue to grow so that, you know, we're regularly seeing incremental improvement in how we're reaching people.
So that's excellent. The page visits question that I have. So 1.1.4 is great.
1.4,000 is excellent.
When you say that those who participate to use one or more. They view the videos. They open the budget book. They also read the information on the page.
That 1.4 is that only people who engage that that level or does that also include people who clicked on the page and two seconds later.
We're off the page.
So I, and so through your chair, I'm going to turn over the lamp, but my fairly confident that is people that visit the page and then there's some additional information on what what they do when they're on there.
That is correct. So through your chair to the camera.
Councilor, that is correct, that it's people who actually are on the page and are on, are on, are there for more than 30 seconds?
Yes, and that's correct. All right, that's excellent. And in Cudos on the work, getting the, giving the word out, I know it's a huge challenge and well done. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Murray, and we have Councillor Miklik up next. Very much through you to our CO. So, something that was brought up is affordability and, and I struggle, I don't know it's affordable anymore. Everyone's just telling me that everything's costing more.
But so, when I read this letter this afternoon from the Chamber of Commerce, one of the points here is ensuring tax increases remain reasonable and manageable for families and businesses so that Lincoln continues to be affordable, competitive, place to live, work and invest.
Competitive. So, when I look at past increases that we've had and I'm curious where and what's being presented initially this evening.
I'm trying to understand what's our competitiveness looking like with the past increases that we've had and this increase that we're facing this year.
Just a point of clarification, I can speak.
It's competitiveness in terms of other municipalities.
Correct. Okay.
Whether what's a tax bill looking like for somebody in Niagara on the lake to compare to somebody in Lincoln.
Through you, sir, and I appreciate the clarification.
That's an interesting question, Councillor. In terms of, you know, me, I think trying to understand where you're going with it and maybe how to answer it for you.
If you're asking me, how do we compare it to others in terms of our competitiveness.
I would say the fact that we continue to get calls from businesses, the businesses continue to reach out both through the Chamber as well as our own staff.
In terms of seeking opportunities here, seeking space here, seeking land here, makes me think we are competitive. Competitiveness isn't just the level of taxation, but it's the level of service one receives.
It's the incentives potentially that are in place both from ourselves and the region.
It is the transportation networks we have.
It's proximity to the GTA. It is transit opportunities.
I think there's a whole bunch of things that go into that competitiveness and are ranking in terms of where we stand.
So I think when the Chamber and the letter we received, you know, when I think I read a comment like that, I think it's keep taxes in track.
I mean, sure we remain affordable, but at the same time let us be competitive not only with our area municipalities in Niagara, but those also that are neighboring to us in terms of what we offer safe communities.
Good value for taxpayer dollars, affordable housing, all those other sorts of things.
So I think it's much more of a holistic competitiveness, not just the municipal tax burden versus other things whether they be provincial, federal or otherwise in nature.
Thank you. I appreciate that answer. It's just, you know, businesses, real estate property owners, first thing they say. Okay, yeah, it's a good deal.
What are the property taxes like? What's the carrying cost? So I want to make sure that we're still competitive in that regard.
That's why I bring that issue up.
And second question that kind of.
Pigtails off of that is have we asked the region set a direction of three and a half percent?
I don't know if they're going to achieve that or not. I think they're struggling the day after they pass that motion.
But whatever the case has the Chamber of Commerce,
Providing a opinion of what they think is a reasonable tax increase, is it?
Are they expecting inflation? Are they expecting 8 percent, 10 percent, 5 percent, 6 percent?
Do they provide any sort of input as far as what they consider to be representing the number of families business owners?
Just a point of clarification on that as well. So again, you've referenced the region there. Are you asking if the Chamber weighed in on the regions?
But you're so guidance or on ourselves as a municipality. I'm not, I just say, I just say that, you know, when targeted.
And I'm trying to understand affordability is an increase of 6 percent affordable.
That's what I don't know.
That three of them is your chair. I'll attempt answer the question. Again, I don't like speaking for other boards or agencies, but I did have a conversation.
I'll be at briefly.
With our Chamber of Commerce and their executive director is here this evening.
But I don't think they're looking at it quite the way the Councillor is. I think asking the question.
And I would suggest, I'll go back to my previous answer.
When one talks about competitiveness, it isn't just one of my paying municipal taxes.
Municipal taxes is one of a list of a number of things that makes a municipality that makes a region that makes an area competitiveness.
So did they look at it and say the increase should be x? The increase should be y? No, they didn't.
You're going to get sick of hearing when you talk about this. I know we only control our portion of it,
but we are one third of that tax bill, so I could give you a negative number and taxes potentially could still go up by 6 percent
because of the region and the education portion of the tax accounts for two thirds of the property tax bill.
That is not to say that we shouldn't be doing hard work. We shouldn't be getting our number as low as possible,
but we only account for 37 percent of that particular bill. So it's about doing our job well,
but about offering other things that continue to make us what I would say is competitive and for me the proof is,
you know, do the calls still come in, do people still come to us, do people still get good service.
I would tell you one question I hear more than what are my property taxes from businesses is how quickly can I get through your processes?
Are you efficient? How long before I can get a building permit?
Those are the things that I often look at. In addition to what are the business property taxes that people get charged,
and so I don't think I've totally answered your question and not because I'm trying not to,
but because that's not necessarily how the conversations with our partnering agencies and other agencies that weigh in typically role.
And again, you know, I'm just, it's just the fourth bullet point in this letter that we received this afternoon,
that generated those sorts of thoughts in my head and trying to understand what we can and can't do,
and that's why I bring that up. Thank you.
Thanks, Councillor McClick. And again, I think actually there's a good tool that the region provides that I did post this week,
and that's around a little bit that actually you can go municipality,
municipality in the region, enter in a assessed home value and then see what the taxation would be in that municipality.
And I believe we rank the fourth lowest that of the Niagara municipalities on the same horse.
Yeah, it's an interesting tool to utilize, I was quite fascinated by the information and relieved at the outcomes.
Through you, Mr. Sherry, I want to commend that comment and appreciate the fact that you did put it out there,
and that we are the fourth lowest in case the chair's comments weren't heard.
Okay.
Send it over to you or follow me on Facebook and you'll get it right there.
Councillor Patrick, you are next in the queue.
Thank you very much, Chair Russell.
And probably a question to Mr. Compolis, Mr. Dianni, and even the mayor.
So thank you very much for the increase in engagement.
Having been a former employee at Stats Canada, I like that stuff.
I find that fascinating and Mr. Kirk Hopplis actually mentioned doing surveys.
I'm the same. I like to, I think it's my duty to do a survey, having been involved in that industry.
And again, making it easy, check boxes, because it does take a lot of time.
I noticed a couple weeks ago, and fascinated by it, because the number of people too that say they don't have computers.
They're not on social media. One of the tools that the city of St. Catherine does is that the mayor holds like a town hall over the phone for one hour and talks about it.
So wondering if we've ever reached out to them to get the level of engagement kind of questions that are asked and get their thoughts on that.
Maybe that's something that we can explore going forward, because that way you cover everything, right?
You've got print covered, you've got digital media covered, you've got old fashioned telephone covered, right?
So I think in that aspect too, and you can opt out from that process.
So at least it gives a lot of resonance and opportunity to engage, and they can't say we didn't try, right?
Because we've used all four minutes, just want to get your thoughts on that, because I think that might be something helpful going forward.
As you see, three of us you share one, and I take a stab at it first.
So we have talked about it. We do see what St. Catherine's is doing. I've used them in the past in a previous role, and so they do work.
At times they can be costly, and so I think if we're going to make a conscious decision to go in that direction.
And maybe the cost has come down depending on I think the scope, how we want to do it, how many of them we're doing, how many people we're going to actually call etc.
It could be something we do, maybe do less of something else, in terms of ads in the traditional outreach, and maybe try something like this before.
I know the mayor mentioned it, and we did say that it was a cost prohibitive, but definitely something we can look at.
It's about prioritizing and maybe looking at, do we do something different one year than another year, and completely go away from this.
I will say that I, you know residents who have reached out, and we do have a couple of very keen residents who like to talk surveys with us, and like to provide us their advice and their perspectives.
I've asked a few of them even, and I suspect they're watching this evening, but I have asked them to share with me, who does it well, who doesn't do it well, at point us to a direction, and so I think there's a benefit to us also looking at and maybe trying to learn from others who do it.
We actually do that in terms of talking around various tables to learn, but I said, you know, outside of Niagara, there's someone that's really nailing it and doing it really, really well in terms of engagement, and so got some ideas.
Again, we can also have the one-on-one conversations with residents.
We do a lot of residents reach out to us and want to have conversations about surveys, about budget, and we do provide them more information and find, again, different ways to engage.
Again, different ways to engage with them, but point duly noted in terms of the telephone town hall approach.
Okay, that's terrific, because it tweaked me again, sending the email to you collecting the data from Councillor Brenney and my word meeting is that we had the sign in sheet that it had the name, it had an email, and it had a telephone number.
And I think part of the reason we had such great engagement at ours is that, you know, we leveraged what staff did.
Social media newspaper, Councillor Brenney, and I both posted on socials, and actually I texted it to over 75 residents, like just took the snapshot of the picture that staff provided.
And the engagement was there, so we tried to use everything out there possible, and it works, it does work.
So I just thought of that going forward. Like if we're collecting this information, we can use it going forward. So appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you chair.
Through you Mr. Chair, just to that point, I also think sometimes a burning platform of sorts, a galvanizing issue is what gets people out and we've seen that on particular issue.
Absolutely, I'm encouraged by the amount of people on the outreach that both you and Councillor Brenney did.
But I also think one particular issue really drove people to attend, and sometimes that's the case.
And budget always isn't that one galvanizing issue or burning platform.
Director Tuna Kaisu, I think it is. No doubt about it.
Thank you, Councillor Patrick. One question from my standpoint to corporate communications. On slide 13, you referenced a question that to me was on answer where you said,
if you were given the option, would you be willing to contribute an extra $50 to help and hand the program or service, that is especially meaningful to you.
And it shows answered 73% but doesn't indicate whether they said yes or no. Just curious on what the outcome of that was.
Okay, through you chair. Oh, to you chair. It doesn't mean yes. So who those who answered it, maybe the way we were did it here is an exactly how it was awarded in the survey, but what basically what we said was,
if you're willing to contribute, then please go ahead and tell us which ones. So if they skipped it, that means they were not willing to contribute.
Thank you for the clarification. Again, I read that through Michael. I just want to know what that.
It is yes. It is absolutely yes and no. All right, perfect. Thank you very much for the clarification.
And I believe our Q&A and that portion is now complete. So we are going to move over to the capital budget overview with spending. I believe director Tuna Kaisu is coming back up.
Thank you chair. And through you was nice to have a little break there. And I do want to acknowledge and thank the communications team and the manager of corporate communication just for all the work that we do together on that and for all of the support. So just wanted to say that from from the finance side.
So here we are. Here we are with our 2026 capital budget. This slide shows you an overview of the spending that's proposed for next year.
9% for corporate infrastructure and 3% for social infrastructure.
This next slide is an overview of the funding sources for that budget. So the funding source is equal to spending, and you can see 38% is grants and miscellaneous other revenues.
26% from the infrastructure reserve fund, 16% from development charges, 12% from the sanitary sewer reserve fund, and 8% from the water reserve fund.
So that gives you the overview. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our director of public works, who's going to talk about the capital renewal programs.
Thank you, 3 Mr. Chair and members of council. I'd like to go over a few slides as it pertains to our capital renewal programs.
So the town has a number of renewal capital renewal programs, which require a budget each year for the maintenance and rehabilitation of our infrastructure.
These programs are essential in delivering very important services to our residents across the community, ensuring that they're safe and healthy and there's a number of programs I'm going to go over here.
So the first one road and right away programs, so these would focus on our transportation services.
The largest one being our road resurfacing and rehabilitation program, focusing on roads.
We have the roadside safety program, another very important program where we look at investing in traffic calming improvements, speed reduction, our guide rail protection programs.
Programs like that, we have sidewalk repair programs, sidewalk investments. So again, a very important program in making sure we're providing connectivity for pedestrians promoting active transportation in the community.
And we have bridging programs, we have a lot of bridges and culverts to maintain.
So for 2026, the total budget for the road and right-of-way programs is proposed at 2.13 million.
So the slides we're going to get it talk a little bit about the roads program.
So the town has invested heavily into its road network over the last several years, made a lot of good investments.
I'm going to talk about the pavement condition index or PCI, which is a rating number, zero to 100, and it's used to assess the condition of road surfaces.
It's a little chart in the bottom of the slide there that kind of lays out all the various categories of this PCI range ranging from very good down to failed.
Essentially the higher the number means the better condition the road is in.
So the town's current average network wide rating, so an average of all of our entire roads average together, is estimated to be in an upper range of the fair condition category with a PCI value of approximately 68.
So we're kind of right at the bottom of the good category into the fair category, and again that's an estimate that we're providing on our current overall rating.
The proposed short term financial strategy in this budget that is before you is to reduce the funding of the road's program.
We're looking at a 1.75 million investment next year versus 2.2 million that we have this year just for comparison.
And we need to do this while we build the contribution to the capital reserves to help reduce the infrastructure gap.
So we wanted to take a look at that reduced funding level and look at what does that do to the condition of our road.
So we use performance modeling to help guide us with our decision making on budgets different scenarios for our road system.
And it predicts the average PCI level of service for the road network will drop to around a 65 rating, so being in the fair condition rating.
So we did check that and we're looking at that level of service rating of a 65.
And again as I mentioned we're looking at a 1.75 million dollar budget proposed for next year.
This slide here so we want to kind of share a little bit of information graphically from the performance modeling that we did.
So the graph on the right hand side there.
So what we're kind of graphing is we have the average PCI so this is the average PCI is the average of all your road network.
So it's giving you an average of your entire road network over time.
So the red when we look at the graph red line is basically if the town doesn't do anything doesn't invest in anything.
Which you can see the you know the road condition or the PCIs.
You know really deteriorate over time we obviously don't want to do that.
The yellow line on the graph in the middle represents the forecast PCI with an annual budget of 1.75 million each year.
Which will result in an overall decline in condition over time.
And again we don't want to recommend that either we don't want to see our road system decline or the condition of our road system.
The black line illustrates the forecast PCI if the town incrementally increases the annual funding each year to maintain a fair condition.
And that's what staff is recommending through the budget process.
So the proposed budget for 2026 we're looking at 1.75 million.
But we want to see that incrementally increase each year thereafter.
Again trying to also balance contributing to our infrastructure reserve.
So we're looking at about $250 to $300,000 a year increase that we want to continue to do on the roads program.
So the gap between the yellow and the black line on the graph there increases over time which demonstrates you know there's a cost to close that gap and it becomes much more expensive over time.
If the funding level of 1.75 million is maintained each year.
Which again is that yellow line and you can see kind of the road conditions declining over time.
We just use an example that little circle on the graph.
So say in 2031 if we just continue to invest the 1.75 million each year.
That gap is actually going to cost of $4 million to bring the road conditions back up to what we're recommending.
Moving forward with next year.
So just wanted to kind of highlight that that gap is very expensive if we leave that over time.
So instead staff recommend the funding being currently increased each year.
And that the PCI is maintained in a fair condition for our level of service without significant decline.
And that the cost was smoothed over the 10 year horizon and the towns road assets are preserved.
So we feel this is a responsible plan that balances both our service levels in terms of our road conditions.
And as well financial sustainability.
So moving over to our fleet replacement program.
Just a little information the town has almost $10 million in fleet and equipment.
So it's a large asset that we have that we have to maintain.
Our asset management plan that we brought to Council back in the summer had suggested that you know we should be spending probably 750,000 when you have that value of a fleet.
With your full life cycle recovery.
So just to kind of give you an idea on the magnitude of our fleet asset.
Fleet is very important. We use it on a daily basis to provide all the important services to our residents in Lincoln.
Vehicles are recommended for replacement when the maintenance cost start to weight the value of the actual asset.
Ensuring that we're making good investments and not, you know, pouring money into a piece of equipment or a vehicle that isn't worth anything.
The budget for 2026 is 110,000 that we're proposing is for a cargo van that's used in environmental services.
And is paid for by water and sanitary sewer reserves as outlined in the water and wastewater financial plan.
And there's no property tax impact with this particular fleet that we're requesting.
And just a highlight as well.
Some light duty vehicles which do not require sort of more customized outfitting for our purposes.
We'll be least in the budget as per that report that we brought to council a couple of months ago talking about that option.
So our water and wastewater renewed capital renewal programs.
We have our water main replacement program in full and infiltration focusing on our sanitary sewer system.
Technology and optimization programs.
So a number of programs and for 2026 our water and wastewater programs are totaling 1.2 million.
And with that, turn it back over to our director of finance.
Thanks, director Graham.
Director, turn the cards.
Thank you and.
The director of public works in the deputy treasurer and I will all be here for questions about these projects after this portion of the presentation.
So in a minute, I'm going to invite the deputy treasurer to come and do a walk through of each area of the capital budget and some of the project highlights.
But I wanted to give a reminder on this slide.
So when staff were directed about the 2026 budget by the mayor, we were still instructed to take council priorities into account.
And so we continued that process that we have been doing for a few years now.
So these were the priorities that council directed us to prioritize projects on with the top two being the highest priority.
So first of all, health and safety second legislative mandated and legal obligations.
And third strategic growth related investment for council priorities and overall healthy community lens and five grant opportunities and partnerships.
So we've continued that process.
It's the same type of prioritization and remapping that we've been doing for some time.
And so I just wanted to provide a reminder of that.
And with that, I will turn it over to the deputy treasurer through you chair to come and give us some of the highlights.
Good evening.
So the town's capital budget is broken out by service area and we will start with corporate infrastructure.
So corporate infrastructure includes buildings, transit fleet, technology equipment and signage.
So there are three projects this year.
One being the cargo van that was discussed a couple minutes ago.
A fire vehicle, a replacement of the command car which will discuss in a moment and the 2026 IT equipment program.
We'll highlight the replacement of the fire command car which was originally purchased in 2016.
The car is currently used for emergency response incident command and fire department admin duties on a 24-7 basis.
So reliable fire vehicles are necessary to ensure a high level of public safety, reduce risk to the community and enable the municipality to comply with its legislative obligations.
And to put this in perspective, if this vehicle was ordered in 2026, it is anticipated that the new vehicle would not be ready until 2027 or possibly 2028, which would mean the existing vehicle would be nearly 12 years old by that time, which would be five years beyond its recommended replacement schedule.
The current budget for this vehicle is 113,000, and it is funded by the IRF.
So the next area is, oh sorry, I have a duplicate.
So the next area is the environmental and safety infrastructure, which includes water, wastewater infrastructure, and fire emergency equipment.
Within this, we have the 2026 fire emergency equipment, I&I reduction program that was discussed previously, water meter replacements, and the fine Haven booster pump station, system rehabilitation.
The next area is social infrastructure, which includes recreation facilities, cemeteries and parks.
It includes 80,000 for sports field upgrades to the Jordan Field 3 lighting and arena work general repairs and maintenance.
And the last area is the transportation infrastructure, which includes roads, bridges and culverts, traffic calming and control, and a number of these programs were discussed earlier in the presentation.
We have the 30 road reconstruction from King Street to south limit, which will be discussed in a moment.
The 2026 writes away, bridges and culverts program, 2026 road rehab and resurfacing.
So the 30 road reconstruction is a joint initiative between the town of Lincoln and the Niagara region. So coordinating with the region ensures that local infrastructure upgrades are completed efficiently, cost effectively, and in full alignment with regional improvements, minimizing, disruption and extending the useful life of the entire quarter.
So integrating the town's storm sewer work into the region's project ensures that all underground systems are designed in construction to modern standards, improving drainage capacity, storm water management and long-term reliability.
So the budget for 2026 is 310,000, which will be added to the previously approved budget of 500,000 for total of 810,000.
Funded 10% by development charges and 90% by the IRF.
And ball's falls, bridge number 50 is located over 20 Mall Creek on 6 Avenue environment, which has reached the end of its useful service life and requires replacement within the next 5 years.
So within the 2026 budget, there is the study for the completion of a schedule B municipal class environmental assessment and a preliminary 30% design study.
The preliminary design will establish accurate cost estimates, defined permitting requirements and position the town for detailed design funding applications and future construction.
So this bridge is a vital component of Lincoln's local road network and its tourism economy as it is situated within ball's falls conservation area.
It's an important connector for residents, visitors, and active transportation users.
The 2024 by annual bridge inspection recommended replacement within the next 15 years because the structure was in poor condition.
So the study requested in the 2026 budget will include archaeological, cultural heritage, and ecological assessments to ensure the replacement design preserves the areas character, minimizes environmental impact and aligns with the town's environmental stewardship commitments.
So the budget requested is 400,000 of which 12.5% is funded by development charges 87.5% is funded by the Canadian Community Benefit grant.
And finally, the summary of the capital budget for 2026 with total except, and it shares of 5.3 million and funding from development charges of 858,000 from the infrastructure reserve fund of 1.3 million other reserve funds of 1 million grants 2 million.
That's the end of the capital budget summary.
Thank you, Kate. You have to go to the next slide where says questions and answers.
There you go.
Thank you so much.
We do have a bunch of questions coming in. I just want to remind council that if you are asking questions about a specific project, please reference the page number in your binder with the project number so that we are all looking at the same information.
So I am.
Do you have any questions?
Yes. Thank you for your chair. I did just want to highlight on that capital summary page that there is no proposed new debt for this year.
Because I just thought that was worth highlighting for you as well not just what's there, but what's not there.
So this year we have kind of looked at those projects and this is what we're proposing all from reserves and grants for this year.
Thank you very much. And we have council very up first. Go ahead, council.
Thank you very much. And Charlotte, I recognize the challenge that it must have been for your team and the rest of the teams that are building budgets to stay within that.
But I do appreciate the fact that there is no more long term budget and no long term boring incorporated into this budget.
Recognizing how difficult and challenging that was to achieve. So thank you for that.
I wanted to talk to Mr. Graham briefly about the the road rehab and that's page 187 of our binders slide number 20 on the on the presentation that we are looking at.
I'm just going to go to that slide for us again.
So that I'm I remember what I wanted to ask you.
So Dave, I know that it also must have been a little painful for you to allow your roads to be in the fair category. I know that you get a lot of complaints about them and you've got a lot of challenges around that.
But I also recognize that something we've been talking about since I've been on council is the idea that I believe when I started the roads are sitting in around 72 and the conversations has been.
How much money can we save if we bring that down just a little bit. So I very much appreciate that we are doing that and I wanted to know what the impact has been. I know that again you're getting.
You're the one who's going to be hearing from or is hearing from people saying, you know, this road is not okay.
You know, the general public probably doesn't understand real carefully are real well the difference between 72 and 68 and 65, which is what we're going to be looking at for the year coming up.
So if I can just get a little bit of feedback from you as to what you've seen in the gap from 72 to 68 so that we can get an understanding what 65 will probably look like.
A three-mister chair to the counselor. I mean, yeah, it's a great question. I mean.
The difference so basically that condition number that rating is really representing how bad is the road surface, right? So.
The difference between a 70 and a 65 so you're going to a road that's 65 you're going to feel a little more cracks on it. It's going to be a little rougher for the cars.
Compared to one that's 70 so you know, so there's it's hard to kind of quantify that but it's really, you know, that's how it's measured it's it's surface distresses so it'll be rougher bumpier maybe more patches.
I think, you know, maybe some context because I know it's a number two and it's 65.
I think one thing I'd like to say about that number is we we want to make sure we stay in that 65 range. There's a graph in your book near the camera what pages but it kind of shows the rate of deterioration on roads.
So we were deliberate with making sure that we stay at that 65 level because when a road starts getting close to a 60 so if it's rated as a 60 PCI or even low 50s that's at a point where that road now is deteriorating kind of going from a fair to a poor condition.
And that's not a good thing for the town in terms of how we're trying to be very mindful and smart about investing in our roads because then you lose that window of hey I could have resurfaced that road or resealed it at a fairly reasonable price and extended its life another 20 years.
Because if it's you know in that protein that poor range like the 60 number or 55 then you're into much more costly work you can't just resurface it so what we want to do sort of trying to balance this whole program with recognizing how important it is to you know invest in our reserves be financially sustainable we don't want to lose control of our road conditions overall right so.
That's kind of that I just wanted to kind of give you some rationale on that 65 number and the importance of not letting it go down to the 60 below 60 it's going to cost a lot more money for the town to bring the roads back up but.
The earlier question I think probably the message to the public is you know some roads might be a little more not as raw you know a little more rough not as smooth as some of the others but again this is.
This is referred to as an average so we're talking about an average of our entire road network that's 300 kilometers so you're still going to have some bad roads out there and you're going to have some really good roads right so we're still this is an average.
Tole network that we're talking about fair enough and I did want to compliment you on the comment that this is a responsible plan that balances service levels with financial sustainability because I think that's what we're all trying to achieve so.
I recognize that it was probably some challenging conversations to meet that so well done I also just on that same page 187 I just want a little bit of clarity because it does say it's anticipated that the 2026 program may include.
And I'm assuming but I wanted to get just your confirmation on that I'm assuming that it may or may not depending on the cost because I'm sure that was it goes at tender costs are going to change things are going to come up so can you just just explain that may peace and what that might look like.
That three of Mr. Chair to the council yes for sure so what we try and do with our budget allocation for the roads program we want to make sure we maximize that budget on roads so.
We always have sort of a we call provisional roads or be less so when we go out for bidding.
We you know we bid the list of rogen in the binder but there's also some provisional roads that are listed here too or be roads and we can we see what kind of pricing we get so if we get good pricing and we can afford to do those will will end up doing those roads as well.
Okay that's that's great and one last question if I could.
I'm I'm not sure who's going to answer this one I'm I'm looking at I'll give you a moment.
I'm looking at to slide number 37 but it's page number 188 and it's the ball's ball's bridge and I do understand that the.
The budget we're looking at right here is just a study it's not about replacing the bridge yet it's just getting ready to eventually replace the bridge and I do recognize that the study is going to be funded quite a bit by the Canadian.
I don't know what the CCBF stands for but benefit fund Canadian.
Thank you.
Through you chair it's the Canada community building fund excellent so they're going to help.
Cooper quite a bit of the cost of the study which is excellent when we are ready when the study is done and now we're going to be ready to actually replace the bridge.
One of the conversations is is that it does go straight through the conservation area it is our it is our road but it does go through the straight through there.
Is there a possibility that when that road is replaced that we get other stakeholders to help support us the costs of that like MPCA are they involved in the cost of that or is that strictly a town cost.
Through Mr. Chair to the counselor a great question so through the study process the process we will identify stakeholders to be part of the consultation.
All the members of the public are part of that too but you're absolutely right conservation authority will be a major stakeholder.
We do want to talk to them about this bridge you know get their input on what it looks like and yeah maybe there's some opportunities for some cost sharing all that will be talked about.
Great thank you very much appreciate that chair.
Thank you Councillor Murray and just a point of clarification on your first question for those that are following at home again you mentioned that the 65 is an average.
Do we also have a floor for which we will not let the roads drop below just in case.
Again those if they do hit 50 40 that it becomes an immediate action point.
A three missed chair so yes we do so on the there's I don't have a right in front of you but there's poor very poor.
And then there's fail we never have any fail right so that would be like you got major safety issues so.
We don't like our roads to get a lot.
Once they start getting into the poor you know they're they're getting rough and then very poor that's the roads that we have to manage and make sure that are you know appropriate but in the low end of the poor going into the failed I think a PCI probably.
Approaching 20 would be a real problem.
Okay thank you very much and next we have Councillor Timbers go ahead Councillor Timbers.
Thank you chair so most of my questions were were just us I was going to ask about the bridge as well and the road program but I do have a question just quickly around the 30 road.
So previously it was 500,000 was budgeted now this year 310.
And can you give me like what's next like what's next year and and when will this actually.
What's our portion compared to the region I don't know if you can answer that but that's a lot of money that we've already invested and we're still sitting like I don't know what's coming next.
I threw Mr. Chair to the Councillor so we we previously in budget approval 500,000 dollars and that was to start detailed design at 30 road.
I mean 30 road is a very challenging road is a apartment crossing there's a lot of work that has to be done to that road.
A lot of stability work along the side of the road a lot of drainage improvements road improvements.
So it's not just a typical coming and pave the road so we've invested in design work to get a plan put together on how we're going to upgrade 30 road.
Geotechnical investigations slope stability so that's kind of what that 500,000 dollars was is forest to prepare a detailed design plan so that we're ready for construction shovel ready.
The 300,000 dollar budget before you this evening.
Is to actually work with the Niagara region to put storm sewer pipes in the road a little bit on 30 and in the King Street intersection just to remind her for everybody the King King Street is being reconstructed by the region of Niagara.
They just awarded their tender and they're going to be starting the work next year a big part of that project is to redo the 30 road King Street intersection is going to be stop lights.
Put in there, and there are also in the scope of the job, the King Street job goes from kind of the roundabout green lane, all the way into Lincoln Avenue.
So it's a major project for the community very important. So what the budget before you tonight is, as part of our future 30 road reconstruction works, we're going to be doing storm drainage on 30 road that we have to do.
So these pipes are going to be for us to connect to in the future for our project.
And that's why we want to do them now, because the region is upgrading and reconstructing their intersection.
And we want to coordinate that with the region and put those pipes in now for the future, opposed to coming back five years later in ripping up a new road to put pipes in for our project.
That's really the reason.
I appreciate your comments, and I, you know, the intersection, can't wait for it to be done.
So just one other quick question through your chair. On the back to the ball's falls bridge, Councilor Marie kind of covered some of the questions, but there's a price tag for 2030, 2,300,000.
So we're a long way out to 2030.
Like how are we coming up with that, just the final cost?
Because it seems to me it's going to be a lot higher than the time we get to 2030.
Through Mr. Chair to the Councilor Seoul, the $2 million cost that's currently in the business case is what we would expect a bridge of that sort of same size, same look.
But really the purpose of the EA study, we're going to go through a number of options.
So it forces us to go through a number of options because the ball's falls location is quite unique.
It's a narrow bridge, it's quaint, a lot of heritage features.
So it is a challenge, you know, what kind of bridge do we want to have back?
Do we still want to have a narrow bridge to have sort of that character?
Do we want to put in a wider bridge?
There'll be all kinds of options, do we even put a bridge back?
So the EA requires you to go through a number of options, we cost them out.
And then they're ranked and then you have a preferred design scope of kind of what to move forward with.
Based on a lot of inputs, all consultation, all that.
So we'll have some design scope and then we'll be able to say okay, this is the decision for ball's falls bridge on what it's going to look like.
And then we'll be able to have a really accurate cost coming out of the EA to then guide us forward towards the construction in five years.
Okay, I was just wondering with that number already put there how we came to that, but thank you very much for the comments.
And as part, there's no new dot being taken on that's probably want to hear so thank you.
Thank you Councillor Timbers and next we have Councillor Brittany.
Yeah, thank you chair, I was actually going to come out of the queue because both of my projects were balls falls and and 30 road, but just in follow up to the questions from Councillor Murray and Councillor Timbers.
So to your point director, it's a very narrow bridge.
We also have a very narrow bridge at you know in Jordan, you know what that goes over the creek there by the campground.
So I'm sure there must be feedback coming in from fire and other people saying, you know, this is kind of an area that we are kept concerns about whether it's, you know, extractions from the board, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So where are we in those discussions and whereby this becomes a much bigger job and now it's a five million dollar bridge instead of two point three.
And again, to Councillor, you know, Murray's comments, NPCA, this is NPCA grounds, you know, where's their skin in the game. So just just looking at where this could could be going.
Through Mr. Chair to the Councillor, I mean, yeah, great question because, you know, as the EA progresses cost is going to be one of the big factors that we, we managed through looking at the various options.
I mean, the problem with the bridge right now for like fire services and even ourselves with large dump trucks has a weight restriction on it. So we can't go over it with large vehicles. So that'll be one of our objectives when we go through the EA processes, whether it's still narrow at the end coming out of this or we make it wider.
It's going to have enough weight, strength, capacity, and it's structure to carry emergency vehicles and large trucks. So that would be one of our mandates coming out of it.
And yeah, the conservation authority is going to be a major stakeholder.
We haven't had discussions with them yet and once we get budget and start this process, we'll be sitting down with them and engaging with them.
And yeah, maybe there's an opportunity to partner with them through this and we'd definitely be looking at all those opportunities.
Thank you. And through you Chair, I appreciate the comments there. And going back to 30 road director Graham, I mean, you've been at our word meetings.
You've been at the regional word meetings at the Legion. You've been at our most recent, you know, we've got residents on 30 road that have been saying,
you know, what's going on, why, you know, we were told this was going to be dealt with. Now it's being pushed back. And that's all finding to Andy.
But I think it's really important that we communicate exactly where this money is, you know, why it's being spent. You've already articulated that.
But I think it's very important, you know, that, you know, the people that are looking at what we're doing, you know, they're saying, okay, you put 500,000 and now you're putting another 310.
Well, this really isn't in essence. It's not really for the work that's going to come. The major work going up to Ridge Road.
It's to accommodate the regional work that's going to be happening at the intersection.
And I think it's important that that communication is clearly so people understand, you know, why this money is being put in this year's budget.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councillor Bernay. Councillor Pachariva.
Thank you, Chair Russell.
In through you to Mr. Graham, now I don't, Dave, I'm, I'm going to question about the infrastructure reduction, right?
So first off, just because I want to get a sense, and you said, like, Councillor Murray asked the question, what's the difference between 72 and 65?
Now, I want to use a real-life example. I don't mean to pick on the region, but I'm going to, I'm going to use the North Service Road.
So between Ontario Street and tougher Road cracks, like it's bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
What would that rate at?
I've top of your head because you're right as opposed to from tougher road to Victoria, smooth.
Just to ballpark it, so I have a sense and maybe people that drive that, then have a feeling of what that's like.
Because like, 62, 75, it's all arbitrary, like a real-life example. Hey, this is, this is a road that's 50.
Just if you can, and I hate to put you on the spot like that, but, but he's going to.
And I apologize if we were doing this and not giving you a headshot.
A range would be more than acceptable than we thought.
Yeah.
If it's possible, if not, we can always have.
If not, we can come back.
Just curious George.
So three of Mr. Chair and Councillor, I totally understand where you're coming from, trying to get some examples.
I actually do have, for next year's road program.
Okay.
For next year's roads program, and I do have some PCIs that I could share, just to kind of give you a feel.
I don't know if you've driven any of these roads, because I think that would be helpful.
So John Street, very poor condition from Victoria Avenue, heading towards Beansville.
It's, it's, it doesn't as a very poor road.
So the PCI on that would be 31.
Oh, so just, so just give you a feel for what if, how bad.
Okay.
That road is, it would equal a 31.
So in comparison, I don't know what other roads you drive, but.
Toughered roads in our roads program for next year, between King Street and John Street.
And that's considered kind of one of our, you know, better roads that we want to preserve, right, one of seal it next year.
It has a PCI of 71.
Just for example, another road in our program next year, 23rd Street, between 8th Avenue and Glen Road.
That has a PCI of 71 as well.
So that it would give you a feel.
Okay.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, thank you very much for that.
And, and so we'll follow up to that is, so the reduction in $450,000 this year compared to previous years.
Isn't going to cause the road network to deteriorate that much,
because the, like the slide 21 shows it virtually.
Why isn't that working?
There we go, 21.
She shows it virtually the same, correct?
Through Mr. Tier to the counselor.
Yeah, I think like the main message, I think we want to get across is over time, longer term.
Yeah, it really falls off.
Yeah, if you let it go for two months, that's right.
So having said that and again, I, you know, looking forward on how we want to add 250 to 300,000 to that to get it up to 3.2 million,
because, you know, I mean, we used to spend 600,000 on roads, right?
And we were like, scissifice pushing the rock up the hill, right?
So now we've got to a point of stability.
At a, at a future meeting, would you be able to provide a graph that then shows how the PCI goes up with that additional spend?
Is that something that we could extrapolate?
So through you, Chair, to the counselor, in the slide presentation, that a graph, I'm not sure what slide I'm great is.
I don't know quite of enough room here.
The slide that's in there, the black line at the top where we put that circle, that's based on putting an increase in each year.
So that top line, what, what the director of Public Works and myself are recommending is to increase the contribution by 250 to 350 to 300,000 per year,
and that's what will keep it at that level.
If we kept it at the 1.75 million, it's the yellow line in the middle.
So the yellow line is staying keeping the contribution the same.
The black line is by incrementally increasing it.
But it doesn't show much.
Doesn't show the PCI actually really moving.
Through you, Mr. Chair, it would be to maintain the PCI.
We need to, so we need to invest that incrementally on an annual basis to maintain the PCI.
Right.
Okay.
We'll talk afterwards about that.
Okay.
Question number two, if I may cancel myself.
I think that was two plus plus A.
No, no, it was a problem.
It was a problem.
Well, I do like the S.
And again, so slide 24.
And you know, this is another one near and dear to my heart.
Water waste water.
So, and I didn't see it, and maybe I missed it, and if I did, I'm sorry.
But we've replaced all the cast iron, right, in our system.
And we're now addressing the cement line that exists.
Do we have that number that you used to provide every year?
And you know, I love that number.
It shows, as we make these investments, how that cement line cast iron goes down.
Is that?
Again, like at an at an next meeting, is that something you could give us?
A three mystery chair to the counselor.
I don't have it handy on me, but we can definitely get it back.
But for sure, I mean, councils made a lot of investment.
We don't have any cast iron pipe on the inside of the pipe.
Any more?
Those are all gone.
You still have some cast iron lined cement line pipe.
Yep.
Which we're tackling now.
Yep.
We're working with those.
And we have some ductile iron pipe as well.
But our metallic pipe is decreasing, which is good.
And third one, sure.
You're at three plus.
We're going to put you at the end of the line here.
Okay.
It is a topic.
It's okay.
I was having questions within my office.
Is it related to the water?
No, no.
It's related to the boss.
Okay.
We'll come back.
You can come back in.
If you'd be obliged.
Council make a lick.
Please go ahead.
All right.
That's for you too.
I'm pretty sure to even share that.
So I'm going to hit that boss falls bridge too.
I don't think we'd beat that down enough.
But like, you know, we talk about 400 grand for NEA.
And I'm struggling with this.
This doesn't even buy a bag cement.
And is there any way to tender a project like this?
With the effort reducing red tape and letting private enterprise tender.
The EA itself, the design itself, and the construction and snowball that into one whole
fall wax.
This is such a thing that's possible.
I don't know from a public works perspective.
Through Mr. Chair to the counselor.
So for design build.
So that could be an option.
So the purpose of the EA is to basically come up with a scope of, you know, what are we going to do?
But what kind of bridge are we putting back? What's it going to look like? So we first kind of have to figure out what that looks like through the EA process with all the studies, the consultation, the stakeholder engagement. Then once we have a preferred alternative, that's referred to, then you can go to detailed design. And that's where you could consider, you know, do I want to do a design bill? Because then the, the, the proponent would have something to work with.
I just struggle with the 400,000, not even buying a bag of cement. That, that, I have a hard time with, but I'm not, that's why you do what you do.
And part two to that question, if I may, we're, we're talking about replacing possibly the Bailey bridge down by the campground also, is there any way to do an EA study that encompasses both bridges at the same time?
I just ask that, because it's just, the same creek, it's the same fish, it's the same, same, same frogs and everything else, same same, same heritage, same sort of thing. And this seems similar bridges in design, can we look at, perhaps, doing that, like, you know, combining two EAs, providing two EAs within one, if we have to go that route.
Where has that been considered?
I hear Mr. Chair. I mean, I guess you probably could consider that. I mean, it would cost more money, because we're now adding a whole other bridge to the process and the EA process.
It does look at the localized location of the future works, the project.
So even though their bridges, they are kind of far apart, you know, different locations.
So I'm not saying it couldn't be done, it's just, you would cost a lot more money than 400,000.
But I understand what you're, but even cost 500 for two instead of 800 for one, or instead of 800.
That's why I kind of made that suggestion. But again, I'm not sure what's been kicked around the, the back room.
So as far as ideas are ways to combine that sort of thing, that's something I bring up.
This week, Councilor McLean, can we have a solution?
Through you.
Comment.
Through you, Chair, to the Councillor. Is it okay if we take that away and we'll try to come back to the next meeting for something with you on that?
It's just not something I can answer on the spot. Thank you.
Another question I have through you.
It's going to be about the fire vehicle that, on page 231, that fire command vehicle.
From a purchasing, like the last, we've purchased a vehicle very similar to this a couple years ago, I believe, and that particular vehicle we financed.
Took a adventure. This particular vehicle we're using the infrastructure reserve fund. Why didn't we use the infrastructure reserve fund at that time and why are we doing that now?
Through you, Chair, to the Councillor.
It's, you know, it's the same theme we've been talking about throughout which is just prioritization.
At that time, we had other demands and priorities that we needed to place on the infrastructure reserve fund.
I'd have to double check which vehicle you're talking about.
I do need to do an update for Council because at the end of last year, we had some savings on debt payments, which I put in my final year and report that we would use for a
adventure substitution. So I'm actually trying to apply that to those fire vehicles as opposed to the debt.
So we're actually trying to reduce the debt that we're taking out for vehicles.
But I'll give you an update on that when we finish out the year and I've determined what funding is possible.
So we're trying to find alternatives to debt funding for vehicles where we can.
If that answers your question.
And then along along that line with that fire vehicle, what happens with the old one?
Like it, it's what happens with this way.
It says that it's experiencing transmission problems having intermittent and electrical faults.
Tires are worn. Are we going to be doing all those repairs anyway?
And if so, why wouldn't we just keep the truck?
Through you, Chair, if I can turn that over to the fire chief, I believe I know the answer to that question.
I'll let him respond.
Yeah, thank you. Through you, Chair.
We will keep it going.
Just try to keep it running until we can get the replacement.
But after we get the replacement, we will dispose of it at auction like we do most of the fleet.
We just sold a pump by this week. One of the old surplus pump.
So you don't need to declare surplus and dispose of.
Okay. Perfect.
I'll jump back in later. I think I'm good for now.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair, Russell. My question is about project number 20633 on page 188.
And it's the roadside safety program.
I'm glad to see, of course, that there are proposed permanent speed bumps on Cedar Brook and Drake Avenue and Connor Drive.
My question is, what goes into the final decision to establish those?
And well, that's my first question.
The question is, if you were to break out, I'm curious, if you were to break out the cost of those permanent speed bumps out of that 90,000, what would it be?
And again, mostly curious, because I'm aware of the conversations that have gone on over the years about speeding on both those roads.
And I do support them.
But again, I'm curious what each of those streets, particularly Cedar Brook Avenue and Drake Avenue, what have we heard?
And what does it cost to install those out of the 90,000?
Through Mr. Chair to the Councillor.
The locations are derived kind of from the temporary speedhumps.
So the way the program works is when we have a request for speedhumps and warrant the speedhumps with speed studies and following our traffic calming policy.
We place temporary ones out on the street, based on feedback, what we've seen.
And usually the temporary speedhumps are on a street for at least a couple years, maybe three years.
And every year we do get feedback from residents, so we send them out a survey and ask them, did you find the speedhumps effective?
And we get comments in terms of maybe adjusting their locations, et cetera.
So through the temporary process, basically derives the final location.
So then that we feel comfortable investing in the more permanent ones.
Okay, thank you. And so how do we, who do we, who does the survey go to?
Where does that list get compiled?
Through Mr. Chair. So it would be the neighborhood.
So we people along the street living in the area.
And we also, I know with our web page, our website, we also promote and talk about what we're doing speedhumps, temporary speedhumps.
And a lot of times we will get feedback, not always from the survey.
We'll get the survey results, but a lot of times people will just contact us about what they think about the speedhumps on a particular street.
So obviously we use that as well.
And to your other question around the speedhumps costs.
So for next year, I think that's going to probably be most of that money.
Depending on how many we put out for tender, they can bury around $7,000 a location.
But again, it really depends on how many that we're putting out for tender and the sort of the locations that they're going to go.
Some locations may be a little more costly to install than others.
But just generally speaking, it's around $7,000.
Okay, so $7,000 per speedhump out of $90,000 budget for the roadside safety program.
So $21,000 or something like that between the three.
Okay, thank you.
And through you, Mr. Chair, I have a question about IT.
One of what I asked that question.
And was that your third question?
No.
Well, when you asked the question?
Yes, no.
Tricky, man.
No.
Steve's back here.
Go ahead.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you to Steve.
So, on page 147 of our binder, where the chart shows asset categories under the corporate asset management plan,
it says that our IT is currently in fair condition at 46%.
With the projected average condition is 74%.
And the funding required is 0.47 million.
So, with that, investment will be good.
Our IT totally will be in good shape.
So, my question is about cyber security.
And I know there is only so much we can say when it comes to security publicly,
because security information is secure by nature.
But are we comfortable?
I mean, I'd like to what extent, what percentage, I guess, of that, of everything that we've lumped the IT category,
is applicable to cyber security.
And are we comfortable that we've invested enough in cyber security to be, if you could break it out, would you say it's very good?
Because that's where I'd like to see our cyber security is very good.
Thank you.
Through you, Chair, to the Councillor.
Our cyber security is good.
We've actually recently made a fairly significant investment in it that I can't quite get into here, obviously, for security reasons.
That's coming out of our operating budget versus capital.
So, that's being handled that way.
And as far as our overall security goes, yes, we are secure.
Yeah, just want to get, make sure that we're very careful when characterization of our security protocols and the level of investment, where we are in open session.
I agree, so I'm not asking for detail, but I do want to know that I would do want to feel comfortable.
If you want to get into detail, then we would have to go into close session, obviously.
But I am comforted hearing that IT feels very strongly that we're in a good position when it comes to cyber security.
Yes, we are in a good position.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Pachema.
Councillor Pachema.
Back in the loop, look forward to the next Greek mythology.
That example as well.
Thank you, Chair Russell.
Okay, boss falls bridge.
Slide 37 and 38.
Dave, I thought that because I've been around for a while, I thought we were a place that bridge or did some work on it when we rebuilt Sixth Avenue or am I a remissed.
So we did Sixth Avenue from Victoria over to Glen.
Did we not do the bridge?
Through Mr. Chair to the council.
So just a little bit of background.
So the bridge was built in 1919.
That's when it was constructed.
Okay.
And then there is a rehabilitation about 15 years ago.
Yeah.
So we did some welding.
Okay.
So by more time on the bridge to extend its life a bit.
Okay.
So much like we did with the Bailey Bridge.
Yeah.
So that's why we're kind of at the point now where we've done rehabilitation in the pass and we've got to replace it.
Okay.
Terrific.
Thank you very much.
And I had to take a little bathroom break.
But I think I heard Councillor Mikkeluk as I was going out the door asking about two bridges.
And what was I correct?
Is the Bailey?
A couple in the E.A.
Okay.
Because I got a reminder that we had two bridges last pedestrian bridges that we had a better price on.
We had a better price on two and Council voted it down.
So I just, you know, want to remind you of what happened in the past.
So if you're going to do that, don't waste staff's time.
Follow up to the ball's falls.
Dave, knowing to, and Councillor Bernay went down this road about how it's a narrow bridge and everything like that.
When we finally get there, we're going to have commenting agencies like,
actually reach out and say, hey, we should make it wider.
We should have the active transportation, the cycling thing.
So hoping that they'll be a commenting group on it.
Through you, Mr. Chair.
Absolutely.
Because when we do an E.A. process like this, we don't have a choice, right?
So there's going to be tons of consultation.
Okay.
Terrific.
And again, I heard Council make like going down this avenue.
And what we get to that, like the business case of a fiberglass refrigerator placement where they come in and they do the abutments ahead of time.
So you don't have to close the road for months on end and tie up money and flag people and this and that'll all be in a business case. So I heard you're going down that's what I'm happy to hear that. So thank you very much.
Just my other question has to do with in council wrenchma got on to it with the with the speed permanent speed humps. And again, very supportive of this.
We're about so they're going to go on counter drive because we already have the one there to access pro-citch park.
It's raised. So wondering because I didn't see a map that shows the installation of where those might be.
We had issues, Councillor Brenney and I both came across this at when we were campaigning from mountain street over to Cassandra and then from Cassandra up to the curve and we've we've got one on the curve and then one coming out the other end.
So are there going to be multiple ones on that street or how are we going to address that.
Through Mr. Chair to the council. So I believe they're going to be closer towards the mountain street direction.
Okay, where you've seen the temporary ones.
Okay, that's yeah.
Okay, terrific.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Councillor Petrieva.
Councillor McLeac.
Back in a second time.
Thank you very much.
Just I'm going to I'm going to look at those water meters.
We're replacing.
I don't know how many water meters but we're spending 300,000 on water meters.
I thought we replaced them all.
2020.
Spend almost two and a half million or something around there in 2020.
Page number.
It's it's it's it's it was in the presentation.
Through you chair to the council.
I can answer that one fairly.
Two two five eight two or page 31 on the.
Go to right.
So through you chair.
Those are recommendation as part of our water and wastewater financial plan.
So when we reviewed this with the consultants.
And we looked at what is required over time.
Their recommendation was that we put in an annual amount.
Anything that we don't spend goes into a reserve specifically for water meters.
Because similar to that situation that you were saying sometimes it's a large lump sum at one point in time.
So their recommendation was that we put away for each year.
And then that way when there's a year where there's a lot will have it there if there's not as many.
It goes into the water meter replacement reserve and we have that available for a future date when it is a larger amount.
Okay.
So it's not a specific it's not that we specifically need 300,000 that we know of next year.
It's that their recommendation is that we put aside 300,000 per year.
We use that as needed because we do have some replacements every year.
And anything that's unused we put away just solely for that purpose in the future.
Okay.
Perfect.
Thank you.
And one more question through you.
With public safety in that piece.
That was.
Counselor.
We're in jam a touch upon it.
Is there any concerns?
You know I read the paper and I watch the news.
There's no more photo radars.
Is there any concerns?
Do we rely on revenue from photo radar to fund this sort of thing?
Is there any impact to our budget that might have changed in the last week or two?
Just ask three questions.
Counselor.
Through you chair to the counselor.
I am happy to say that the way that we budgeted for it was the first year we received that we put it into a reserve.
So there is going to be a budget impact eventually, but not next year.
And it's something we're able to smooth out by using what we've put into that reserve towards that program.
And then just kind of gradually letting it taper off if there is a budget impact.
Okay.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Counselor.
Make a look.
Vice chair.
Come on in.
Thank you.
One of the clarifications I wanted to pick up on a on a question that was asked by Councillor Murray regarding the job number 202639.
Both full bridge.
And regarding stakeholders and other interest parties.
Is that bridge on our property like on the town right of way?
Or do we is the road allowed like the road allowance?
Yeah.
Well, sometimes they are adjusted.
Something.
Because of the way that jogs are we actually on.
MPC a bland.
I'm just, you don't dance that day, but I'm just that jogging my memory.
Because the years ago there was some robbie alignment.
And I'll do the only thing I say that is any aid might be better on our property.
And maybe it's a better location for it than where it is there right now.
That's all.
Through Mr. Chair.
And that's a great question.
There's a narrow road allowance up there.
But through this process we will be able to look at the legal property survey as we get as we do the EAs study and really confirm where property lines are.
You confirm all that.
But it is a narrow spot up there.
You're absolutely right.
So it'll be reviewed further for sure.
Okay.
Thank you.
Also.
Job.
Sorry.
I don't have the page number.
Another one for director Graham.
Job number 202-638.
That's the vine haven.
Booster pump station.
I realize this is the water.
It David.
Is this off a regional main that we have to put this into fine haven?
Or is this our main coming off of King Street?
Just like is there.
Is that our portion is the region kicking anything?
Or this is ours to bear solely.
Through Mr. Chair to the Council.
So this is off our main.
Also it's ours.
It's to basically boost pressure.
The King Street up to the bench.
Just trying to get the region to kick in a little more.
It's all.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
Sorry.
Thank you.
Director Graham.
Thank you.
Chair.
Rimer.
Any more questions or comments on capital?
Nope.
Seeing none.
Thank you to staff for that presentation.
I want you to take a five minute biobrake.
So let's come back.
At my laptop, 715 p.m.
you
alright
and we are back
thanks everybody for indulging
our small break
we are now going back to
director tuna kites for part two
of this
exciting
budget conversation
director tuna kites
over to you
thank you
through you chair
and so happy
someone sees my presentations as exciting
so next up
the topic we want to discuss is
asset management and the infrastructure gap
so in 2025 the town completed an update of
asset management plans for all service areas
which were consolidated into a corporate asset management plan
the camp
with council's approval of the 2025 camp
the town has met all of the requirements of Ontario regulation
58817 to date
the camp provides
a snapshot of the state of the town's asset portfolio
a description of the condition of the town's assets
the recommended life cycle activities and expected service levels of service
a recommended financial strategy to ensure content
So the good news there is we have been investing in our capital infrastructure. That's what we want to do. We want to keep it in a good condition. We want to have it where it's not very expensive to rehabilitate down the road and we've been doing so.
I will note for you that this graph below, it shows the current replacement value of the different types of the towns assets, but it does exclude the former BDSS site, which has not been incorporated into the camp pending community consultation and a future decision by council concerning the long-term plan for the site.
So I mean, you can see right here our largest replacement value assets are a water network and then roads, storm and sanitary sewers.
So when people think about what their rates are paying for when they're using their water, when they're using their sanitary sewers, it's going towards maintaining and keeping all of these assets in a good condition to provide them with clean and healthy water.
Lincoln, like most municipalities, has an infrastructure gap and our asset management plan highlights the importance of investing our assets at the right time to maximize the tax dollar.
So I would say that what director Graham was talking about about the road rehabilitation program, that's really what we were looking at between public works and finance as part of that process.
We don't, we want to make sure we're investing enough in the roads that they don't get to the point where it's really expensive in order to bring them back up to the level that we want.
So this shows an overview that over time our assets are going to cost us on average 26.3 million per year in order to maintain and replace.
And currently, what we have available is 8.66 million per year, so the total annual deficit or the infrastructure gap is $17.6 million per year.
Now as a reminder, we've looked at this slide before, these are some of the headlines from municipalities across the province and across the country.
We are all experiencing an infrastructure gap. This is not unique to the town of Lincoln. I would say to you that I think the reason the province in part, at least, brought forward that asset management regulation and asked municipalities to go through that exercise is to ensure that we all really look at those assets and we have a plan in place in order to fund them.
So I wanted to take a minute and talk about what has been happening with inflation.
Some people that I hear from the email me as the treasure, they would like property tax increases to be equal to the increases in the consumer price index.
It's a very common request. The consumer price index is based on the price of a typical basket of goods and services that are purchased by households.
So things like groceries, clothing, housing costs, their utility costs, and from 2019 to 2025, the consumer price index increased approximately 21%.
Now that was from January to January. There's different ways you can calculate it from one month to another but this is a good approximation.
The types of goods and services purchased by a municipality are not the same as the types of goods and services that are purchased by a household.
The towns purchases include items like road construction, water mains, fire trucks, and snow plows.
So on household side, you have groceries, clothing, utilities, and housing costs on the municipal side, we have things like construction, fire trucks, snow plows, and fuel.
The cost of items purchased by the town has increased at a faster rate than the cost of items purchased by a typical household, and so I'm going to go through some examples.
Example one is a tandem truck with front and wing plow and sand sulther. In 2019, that plow would cost 297,000. In 2025, it would cost 424,000.
So that's an increase of 43%. If we contrast that to a consumer inflation rate of 21%, if it had increased at the rate of consumer inflation, it would cost 358,000,000.
So I think that's part of the challenge when we're trying to explain the reason for property tax increases when we're trying to explain why the infrastructure gap has grown is that the frame of reference of most households and most people is the 21% increase in cost that they've experienced, but that's not what we're experiencing as a municipality.
I rearrange my example, so this is example three, but it's supposed to be example two. I realized that when I was reviewing my presentation, but the next example is a pump or rescue truck.
So the price of that pump or truck in 2019 was 631,000. The price in 2025 is 1.3,1 million dollars, and that is with fewer rescue components in features.
So that's an increase of 108%. And the reason I wanted to show the prices because I think when we say things like 108%, that's really a difficult concept for a lot of people to comprehend.
It sounds like maybe it's an 8% increase. 108 means more than doubled during that time. So as a reminder, consumer inflation over that same time period was 21%.
If the truck hit increased at that rate, it would be $762,000, but it's 1.3,1 million. So that's part of what we've been faced with.
That's part of what's causing that infrastructure gap to grow in a way that wasn't necessarily a result of something we did. It's a result of the situation that we're facing.
Another example is the 58th inch water meter, which increased 33% over that time period, where consumer inflation was 21%. We also have fire bunker gear.
For that period of time, it increased 100% which means the price doubled. And as a reminder, in that same time period consumer inflation was 21%. So we went through a list of items, quite a list of items,
and then we've just summarized them here for you, but road resurfacing material sidewalks and curbing 29% to 49%. Hazard speed and stop signs 25% to 95%.
Extracation equipment, spreaders and cutters, 22 to 33%. Water means PVC pipes and couplers, 26 to 65% software, 59 to 480%. So some software has almost doubled in price during that time frame.
And the construction price index was 50% all while the consumer price index was 21%. So this is what we, not just Lincoln, this is what municipalities are contending with.
It's a hard conversation to have with people. We want to keep that affordability in mind, so we're always trying to balance those priorities, but this is the reality that we're faced with.
So the increased inflation has wide in the infrastructure gap, because now what those assets will cost us in order to maintain and replace is now a higher number than it was five or six years ago.
This is affecting many municipalities, and we have limited sources of funding to offset those increased costs.
Most of Lincoln's ongoing grant funding, such as our multi-year grants, have not kept pace with the rate of inflation. So we don't have 50% more grant funding than we had a few years ago.
Not, sorry, and I should say those are the ongoing grants. We've had some good news on the application base grants. I'm talking about the ongoing ones that fund the replacement and rehabilitation of our assets.
So I shared this slide with you last year, which compared from 2022 to 2025, and it just kind of shows you during that time frame, a construction price index increasing 28%.
Our CCBF funding going up 12% and some of our provincial funding decreasing during that time. We have had good news about our provincial funding increasing for this year, but it does still kind of show you that it's overall those ongoing grants aren't keeping pace with our inflation.
So what is an infrastructure gap? This graph illustrates it. It shows that the cost of maintaining and investing in our capital assets exceed the available funding.
The gap existed prior to the pandemic, but it has widened due to that rapid inflation.
So at the very top of this graph, the top line is what our asset management plan tells us our capital need is on average every year.
And I know it's a solid line that goes from 2020 to 2026, but I've circled 2025 because this is the year we completed it. So we knew it was there.
We knew we had a gap. We couldn't really quantify the amount of the gap until this year. Not council, not me. We all knew it was there, but we didn't know the size of it.
So now we have a quantification of that gap and what do we do in response? So you can see from the graph at the bottom of the line the green line with dashes is the funding that we've been putting into it and you can see how we've been increasing it.
We have been putting effort into closing that gap pretty significant I would say over the last three years.
So when you see that green line coming up, we're trying to get that eventually all the way up to where the red line is.
And our asset management plan says it's going to take us 15 years. It's not something that happens overnight and that's common.
Okay, so that's common in a lot of places that are doing asset management plans. It's not that you can do it in one year. You do it over time.
And then the yellow line in the middle with the dots is what our actual spend has been over that time our budgeted numbers.
So you can kind of see that at points in time we were bridging that gap by taking out debt or pulling from reserves and now we're in a time of rebuilding.
So to the point that I made even in the earlier presentation, I said I wanted to highlight that we didn't have debt.
As I was driving here today and I was talking to this staff, I was saying to me this is saying like that old song to everything there is a season.
So there's a time to build, there's a time to replenish, right? So we have that time we have been doing a lot but we also are in a time right now where we need to replenish our reserves and that doesn't mean one thing is good or bad.
It means this is the season that we're in right now.
So as a reminder, the current replacement value of the town's assets is approximately 1.56 billion.
89% are in fair or better condition. The vast majority of these assets must be maintained and eventually replaced.
We want to do this in the most cost-effective manner. Sometimes deferring work on the capital program results in higher repair and maintenance costs in the long run and so we want to invest strategically.
Municipalities have only a few sources of funding for capital. We have development charges for growth related, tax-levy, the rates, water, wastewater and building department and those can only fund their related costs.
We have grants and then we have donations and other miscellaneous revenues.
I want to remind that debt and reserves are tools.
Their tools that are used to spread out the cost of capital expenditures over multiple years but the funding sources remain the same.
So I'll give an example with the water rates.
We have three options when we need to fund something with water rates.
We do it in year on a pay as you go basis or you take out debt and when the principal and interest payments become due, you pay them with the water rates or you collect the water rates over time and you put them into a reserve and then you pull them out when you need the expenditure.
In all three of those examples, it's being funded by the water rates. It's just the tools that we use and the manner in which we choose to spread those costs over time.
And as I mentioned, there's a season. There's a time. There's a time to use one tool. There's a time to use another tool but that's all they are tools.
Lincoln's primary source of revenue like most municipalities is property tax.
The town has prioritized taxpayer affordability and will continue to do so.
And that's why we're phasing that line up with time. We're not trying to meet it in one year. We're taking steps one year at a time.
Like most municipalities, Lincoln has an infrastructure gap. In our asset management plan highlights the importance of investing in our assets at the right time to maximize the tax dollar.
Inflation, economic and other factors have increased the cost of capital works and emphasized the need to plan for the future.
Ensure that we're investing sufficient funds in the capital levy and capital reserve funds to maintain and replace our infrastructure as it ages.
So this slide summarizes what we're proposing for this year. At the top, it shows you that the annual
levy-supported capital need according to the camp is 18.06 million. So the slide that I had showed you earlier
with all the assets included water and sewer, this is just property tax-supported assets. The average annual
spent from 2026 to 2030 in our forecast right now, which is funded by the tax-levy is 7.8 million. So that's good news.
We don't need to be at that 18.06 million right away, but we do need to get there with time. The average levy annual spend, over that time, after we issue
$4.3 million of debt, is $3 million per year. So you can see we've put a plan in place in that forecast, while we're building back up the reserve fund.
So the 2023 transfer to the infrastructure reserve fund, which we call the IRF, was 1.33 million. In 2024, it was 1.77 million. In 2025, it was 2.47 million. So this is where we see the progress that we've been making
and the proposal for 2026 is 3.12 million. Increasing the transfer to the IRF will reduce the need for debt over the long term.
We're putting more money towards capital infrastructure and this must continue because we need to maintain all of those assets.
It's important to reach a sustainable average level, regardless how much is spent in one year. So we don't want to do that pay as you go method that I said, because it results in sharp fluctuations for people.
We want to smooth it out every year. So the increase for the capital levy is proposed at 650,000, which is approximately a 2.5% increase on the link proportion of the property tax bill,
which is 0.92% of the total property tax bill, and it means approximately $56 for the average residential household with a 2025 assessed value of 385,000.
With that, I will turn back to where we are in the process and timeline. This is our capital budget meeting. Next week we'll meet for the operating meeting,
and then the 24th is the potential amendment meeting, and so I'll turn it back over to you chair.
Thank you, Director Tinnockitis. Before we get into questions, I just want to make note for yourself, the CAO and the comms team.
I think in that presentation there was a really good educational information that could really provide a lot of insight for our residents and community about the inflationary pressures.
And I think the timing of that messaging should be in and run the time that our release goes out as far as whatever we are not approved, but get to the ultimate decision on budget.
That I think that the message will be well received and provide a lot of context to some of those pressures that everybody is facing.
Kudos to you for putting them in there and providing us with that insight up front.
With that being said, we have only one person in the queue, Councillor Bernay, you are first here.
Yeah, thank you chair. And that is exactly what I was thinking when I was looking at those slides.
I thought they were really, really well done, and I think they can go a long way to kind of massaging everyone's concerns.
I thought they were really, really well done. That said, the infrastructure gap.
I'm wondering if you could go back to slide 54, I believe it was where it showed what our infrastructure gap was.
I believe what was it 1.56 billion.
Yeah, I said value.
I think it was like 54, I wrote down when it was going through.
Yep, so that's okay. So understanding that everyone, like, you know, the slides were well done.
Everyone's dealing with this, everyone's got an infrastructure gap.
Everyone is trying to get as much funding as they can to offset, take it off.
That said, it seems every time that we talk about something, we bring in a consultant.
At the end of the day, we do a comparison between other municipalities.
I understand it's not an apples to apples comparison.
I understand that rural versus urban, the kilometers of roads that everyone has, I understand.
And we heard from director Graham tonight, the PCI, we've tried to do a good job.
We're going to back off a little bit, but he made it perfectly clear.
We've got to throttle it back up and you're coming in about there's a season.
Very well, very well pointed.
But my question is, can we see a comparison with what other municipalities?
Because I think it tells a story where some municipalities are lower than us.
Some are going to be high and we can point to, you know, what some of these municipalities have done and what we've done well, where we've fallen off.
And it's just a comparison, it seems like we do comparisons all the time.
I would like to see a comparison on this infrastructure gap, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are in that.
Through you chair to the counselor, and I mean the CAO may want to chime in as well, but I think we can work on something.
It's not a quick thing to do most asset management plans are public facing.
To your point, it isn't apples to apples, because how they might have measured exactly their current funding that's available is their asset condition based on just the life of the asset or is it actually condition based.
So I mean, but you spoke well, like I know you understand that.
So I think we can come up with something for you. I don't know if we can come up with it for you before the next meeting, but we can definitely come up with something for you with the caveat that it's very hard to compare to our neighbors because we are each also unique.
And I know that might not be exactly the answer, but I do think it's true.
I'm not sure if the CAO wants to add anything, but I think I've summarized.
But I will look into that, I will work on something, and we'll come back to you with something.
Yeah, I think that's good, and I think the CAO has a comment.
Yeah, three of us, which are maybe just to dovetail to that.
Charlotte and I were talking about this earlier.
I think we can highlight for council what our total replacement value is, and start to, I think, compartmentalize it.
What's our asset condition? Because I think our asset condition to your point counselor is probably going to have more in that good category than others, which highlights the fact that this council has made some significant investments.
So yes, there's still going to be a gap at the end of the day, but how do we stack up where others, others, there's probably more of them that are in the fair to, fair to better, I think is the category versus good, and so I think that would be good information.
So we'll work to provide that as soon as we can.
Thank you, Councillor Renee, and again, just to give a comment.
I know we had this discussion, I think last term when we were trying to pull comparisons on operational costs for our municipality compared to others,
and it is such an apples to oranges to bananas comparison, because there's no real-like municipality, again, they all have different strengths, weaknesses, and from an operation standpoint, again, those numbers were all over the board.
And what I thought might be something that worked, again, logically, usually didn't, and I think you probably can have a very similar situation with this as well, and it's just trying to, I guess, maybe find the best picture, but again, I'll leave it in your hands to bring some of that back.
Councillor McLeod, your up next.
Thank you very much.
Through you two Charlotte, just back in July, there was a fiscal report, a financial report that was presented, and there was a chart with various capital projects.
In progress, design and progress, just different states of those projects.
Some of them are like 17%, 20%, 7% all of this sort of thing, and these are all approved numbers, all approved financial commitments that we've made.
Do we go back and revisit some of those sorts of capital allocations or commitments and say, you know, we've only spent 7%, maybe we don't need to bother spending anymore.
Some of them are quite significant, some of them are relatively little, but I'm just curious if there's been a conversation amongst staff about revisiting those previously approved.
Um, projects or things of that nature.
Through you, chair to the Councillor.
So, one thing I would highlight is, I know it's challenging that when we bring forward a financial report, it's based on things like invoices received.
So that percentage is the percentage of costs that have been incurred up until that date and time, which is not necessarily always equal to the percentage of work that's complete.
Because sometimes there's a lag from the time that, you know, that work gets done, then it gets built to the town, you know, there's a payment certificate, it goes through a whole process.
So, that's one caution I would give, but in short, yes, we are always looking at things like these projects are all approved by council.
So, if there is a recommended change by staff, we note that in that capital appendix, which you receive for information and it would be subject to your approval.
But if we are recommending that something be either paused or if we're recommending that something be canceled, we always note it in that report for you to make sure that you're aware and that if you had any concerns with that, you could raise it with us.
Most things we were brought forward for a reason, they're necessary, they might get put on hold, they might have a delay for some reason.
Sometimes there's a delay because of a construction period, so you're always naturally going to see a lot more through Q2 and Q3 on the capital projects.
But in short, yes, we're always looking and we're trying to come up with the best value and make sure that there's still things that we recommend proceeding with.
Okay, thank you, I just I just brought that up just because times change and so do bank balances, so do reserve balances, so do debt levels, so that's that's why I want to make sure.
Thanks.
Thank you, council. Make a quick council.
Thank you very much chair through you to, uh, Ms. Tunakitis.
I wanted to just revisit slide number, or it's 53, which is the little graph that you're showing about our capital need.
Where what we've been invested with the current funding, you see the one that I'm looking at.
I just would like to get a picture of this because I do understand that the the capital, the camp program is a provincially mandated thing prior to this.
A lot of municipalities didn't really do this, so as you said, there's always been an infrastructure gap, but there was never an identifiable number as to hey, this is where this is what it would cost replay something.
So across the province, every municipality was kind of to the little long and thinking about, you know, eventually we're going to have to pay for some of this stuff and going with and now we're all focused in a really different way.
So I recognize that some of these, some of the gap being identified is in some ways a manufacturer challenge.
I would like to know what the vision is in 15 years.
So the comment areas is that, you know, we need to have average spent, we need to have average put into the into the bank every year so that when the big, the big bill comes up, we've got the money to do it.
We won't be going into debt to do what we've got the money here so that we can continue doing that.
So is the expectation that in 15 years, if everything goes exactly to plan, that all of our infrastructure will be covered.
So, you know, what one of those fire trucks that keep on increasing costs so exponentially, you know, one of them comes to end of life and we're going to buy one and we don't need to go into debt to do it because we've got the funds set up because it was part of our assets and we've managed it and now we've got money.
Is the future picture that we are fully funded for all of our, any of our replacement, but any, any replacement required for our assets?
Through you chair to the council, great question.
I would say from my perspective, I do think there's a time for debt.
What we would be working more towards is an even more strategic approach to when we use debt versus when we use reserves, because there are still going to be peaks and valleys, there are still going to be ebs and flows, even if you reach that level of say 26 million.
You've still been addressing the backlog that we're going to have from now till then, right?
And then, you're also still going to have occasionally a massive water main, for example, that needs to be fixed that you might need partial debt funding for.
You've also got development-related projects.
So, those are excluded from here. Our DC projects are not in that number and sometimes DCs are well suited for debt, because typically what happens is we need to put infrastructure in the ground, then the development happens, and then the DCs are collected later.
So, I would say my recommendation is that the eventual plan is not to have no debt, but the eventual plan is to have more freedom to be a strategic as we want to be, and only use it for projects that we think are worthwhile, which is what we've been doing up until this point.
But it just gives you more freedom, more leeway to do that, and then you just continuously evaluate with time.
So, clarify a question if I reach.
So, then, if I understand you correctly, the idea would be that we're continuing to build reserves so that we have flex.
I kind of think about personal finances, which I recognize are very different from municipal finances.
But the idea is, I have a home in my home is worth extra $10, and if I had to replace it tomorrow, I'd have to, my house is worth $500,000, if I had to replace it tomorrow, I'd need to have $500,000 in the bank.
So is it a realistic expectation that we don't have an infrastructure gap? Is that reasonable that there is no gap? Or is it more reasonable that there is a smaller gap?
Go ahead.
Through you chair to the Councillor.
I mean I guess what I would say up until this point is, you know, if you look at that, if you look at that graph that we had pulled up, we started increasing our contribution in 2023.
I didn't have that infrastructure gap number yet. I just knew that there was one, and I could look at the forecast, and I could see, you know, I could see through that what we kind of needed to be putting away.
So I think all of these documents are water waste water, financial plan, our DC study, we're always updating them, and our asset management plan is no different.
So I see your point that I don't think it's like one moment in time.
I think it's that you have goals that you're working towards, and that's why we're not trying to reach that limit in one year.
We're trying to reach it over five years and as over 15 years, I'm sorry, and as the time goes on, we'll keep evaluating that.
We'll keep looking at those assets, we'll keep evaluating their condition.
I mean, that's part of the asset management plan. It's part of why we brought a person in house to focus on asset management and GIS this year, so that we can continually have that information and evaluate it with time.
But I feel confident that the increases that we've done so far, and that I'm continuing to recommend are necessary, based on even just what's in the five year forecast.
Okay, thank you very much, Charlotte.
Okay, thank you, Councillor Maria, believe that CTO has a quick comment.
Through you, Mr. Chair, because I think it's a very good question.
I think the goal is in zero gap, it's actually more of a controlled gap, and so I think our goal is not to fix everything, but rather to make sure that our assets are safe, they're functional, and we can financially manage the things that are in front of us, so that we don't have failures or sudden failures or failures of infrastructure.
And at the same time, also don't have tax breaks.
So I think at the end of the day for my perspective, it is about that controlling of that gap, not necessarily ever where we'll be in a place, because I don't think it's ever financially feasible for any municipality to eliminate the gap, because we're constantly taking on new assets.
Whether it be through growth or otherwise, and so we have to financially plan for those assets moving forward.
And when I think 92% of revenue tools are provincial and federal and not municipal, that makes it very hard to close that gap.
So we do need to rely on senior levels of government as well to assist with that infrastructure, challenge that we all things.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you, Mr. CTO, and Councilor Regema.
Thank you, Chair Russell, it's a really it's been a really interesting conversation.
So the question that pops into my head is, over time we talked about when we apply for funding from upper levels of government.
Sometimes it's taken into consideration that that municipality has a lot of money in their accounts.
I mean, to what extent would you say that that is taken into consideration?
And should we be thinking about that over time?
Through you, Chair to the Councillor.
I haven't seen it in my time that that with that municipality proactively planning financially has disadvantaged them for a grant application.
I think sometimes they do also look at things like the overall demographic of the community as well.
And so I think taking that into account and making sure we're being responsible.
I personally haven't seen that be disadvantageous, I'm not sure if the CAO has any other experience on that to draw from but it's not something I've seen.
So I think we would still be in a strong place in terms of grant applications because I think often what they're looking more as what you're looking to accomplish with that grant money.
Yeah, that's that's what I would say on that.
Thank you Mr. Chair. I think the only thing that I would add in Charlotte and I were recently talking about.
The recent budget or federal budget announcement and how certain funds are apportioned as well as some of the provincial funds and so ones.
I think Charlotte highlighted one municipality received a substantial amount of money but I think that has to do with the rural nature of it, the remote community.
The federal programs do prioritize or provide some enhanced funding support depending on need, depending on ability to pay fiscal capacity but they're very specific.
So we have heard that in the past.
I think oftentimes council's asked us about OSA if you've asked us about other types of programs and why our number doesn't increase or why X municipality gets more than Y municipality.
So some of it is that I think the ones where we apply to the larger infrastructure stimulus type programs to Charlotte's point. Yes, those don't necessarily penalize or hold us in a disadvantaged position because we have reserves that we don't have reserves.
I think it's about the strength of the application.
But there are some of those existing programs like the ones I messaged where there is priority given depending on rural composition as well as fiscal capacity.
Need.
So a little bit of both depending on which type of program need does weigh in but depending on other programs some of the larger grants we've received really is on the strength of the application.
Okay, something to think about. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Councillor Regema and our CAO for.
Friendly some commentary. I see no other questions. So director Tuna Kitis. Well done. Great information.
Steller presentation.
Steller. That's right.
We are now going to move on to the next portion of our meeting.
We will bring up fire chief Hudson regarding the fire department.
26 budget chief Hudson. Please go ahead.
Thank you.
Good evening chair members of council.
I do thank you for having me here tonight.
I just thought that that would be a good opportunity to speak to some of the challenges that are being faced in the fire department in the budget this year coming year.
It's a little bit of a double tail with what director of finance is already presented and it is a little bit of our precursor to what's coming in next week in the operating budget but it's good information.
And I should also say too. It's a little bit of a sneak preview in terms of the fire service as we all know that we have a consultant doing a comprehensive fire service review that should be released shortly.
And you know that will you'll spur a number of conversations and then coming months and you know this is a little bit of a preview of some of the challenges we're facing.
All right. Do I control the slides or do.
All right. Okay. There we go.
All right. Just by way of a little bit of a background.
Of course, we have four fire stations, but 21 vehicles in that price and our fleet.
The whole time, 118 volunteer firefighters, some also call them paid on call and 12 on paid auxiliary firefighters.
I should mention that we have had a volunteer fire service in this community since 1849.
So over 175 years.
Unimputated by progress. No.
But it started in the village of Beamsville. We had our first organized fire department.
And I have to say that in a large part that same model, the same way of operating as remained unchanged since that time.
You know, we have had some advances in technology in terms of, you know, pages and things of that nature, but really the model remains the same.
So we are governed very heavily in the fire service. Of course, the primary piece of legislation is a fire protection and prevention act.
And it actually mandates municipalities to do a few things.
We're required to provide public fire state education, fire prevention.
And we also are required to provide fire suppression, rescue and other emergency response services in accordance with our needs and circumstances.
And you may ask, what are our needs and circumstances?
Well, that is determined through performing community risk assessments to look at the, you know, the risks in the community and how we can address those.
So that is very requirement by the regulations that we do those under periodic basis as well.
So in Lincoln, here are here's the shopping list of some of the services we're required to do.
And I have to say that a lot of these on the list were not in place in 1849.
But as you can see, it is quite extensive.
And to be able to perform all those, obviously, the firefighters have to be trained. That would be well equipped.
And they have to be prepared to do that at a moment.
Notice, because our painters could go off and we could get any one of these calls in five minutes from now.
So I should draw your attention to the fact that we do provide in terms of firefighting interior fire suppression, which means if there's a structure fire building fire.
We actually are trained in a quick to go into the building to rescue people, remove them and actually fight the fire from the inside and put it out to see the fire.
Not all fire departments do that typically smaller departments rural departments do an exterior fire attack, which basically means you stand outside with hoses and wait for the building to burn down.
So that's, that is really determined by the community risk.
So as I mentioned in order to do that, we have to be trained.
And back in 2022, the province came up with some mandatory firefighter training and certification requirements.
And you can see the extensive list of the standards that we're required to train and certified to.
Most of the bread and butter services we're supposed to be certified by July of this coming year, 2026.
And there are three specialty services, the more technical nature, the technical rescue such as.
High angle rescue, rope rescue, water rescue, ice rescue.
We have a little bit more time to get certified that's another two years hence.
So that as you might imagine has been quite an arduous and expensive process to get every up to speed.
I'm proud to say that we are a bit of a head of the curve in that for the last number of years.
And whenever we hire new firefighters, probably recruit fire training program has incorporated these standards.
So, you know, people graduating from the recruit class were certified in basically firefighting and some of those others.
But there are a number that we have to kind of fill in the gaps.
And it has been a little bit of expensive proposition to you can see.
In order to meet the deadline for what we need to do by July of next year, it's going to cost us.
And this is included in the operating budget, but $129,000 just for that alone.
So one of the biggest fire department budget drivers coming into 2026 is really the firefighter wages.
So you can see the firefighter wages over the last six years are really basically kept up with the CPI that Charlotte mentioned before.
Unfortunately, we've been a little over budget to in five of the past six years.
And if it hadn't been for COVID, we probably would have been over that year as well.
And I'll explain some of the reasons for that.
And we can see where the orange line exceeds the blue line.
The averages are a little bit more prevalent in the years where we have an intake of volunteer firefighters.
And there's quite a bit of training involved in that.
So that's reflected.
So as you can see, as I mentioned, the increase cumulatively is about 20% which is on part of the CPI over that period.
The problem is that our demand for service, our fire calls, have increased 55% over that same period.
So you can see a bit of a gap there.
So our call volume is exceeding the increases exceeding the, what we're getting, you know, for CPI inflation more than three times as fast.
And so what that means is it's, you know, there's a bit of a gap.
And this sustain growth underscores the need that, you know, we have to invest in our personnel and, you know, to meet that gap.
You can also see that, you know, with that increase in calls, that's directly to related to the pay.
And so as I mentioned before, you know, our CPI, our budget has been keeping part with CPI at about 20%.
And over the same period, obviously.
And it's really putting a demand on the sustainability of the volunteer fire service. So really, in a nutshell, we're being asked to do more, more complex, more calls, more time commitment by the volunteers.
And it's really, and as we'll see, when the fire service review comes out, you know, it's really putting a real strain on the sustainability in the long term of the volunteer fire system.
So in terms of fire calls, very average calculation, so when we divide the number of fire
calls by in 2024 by what the firefighter payroll is, that's about $155 on average per
call to respond, add the average truck calls of 280 per call and you can see a really rough
estimate every time we get called is $1,300,
and one of the huge drivers for us in recent
years are false firearms. So in 2024, we respond to 190 of them, which is now the most common
type of call we go to, which surprised us to pass medical calls. And so if you take that average
cost per call. It's costing a quarter of a million dollars to respond to false alarms.
And I should add that false alarms are for a number of reasons. It's not just an alarm system.
You know, somebody pulls the alarm or a smoke alarm or things like that. This also handles things
for people actually physically call 9-1-1. So I think I see a fire and turns out to be steam coming
over greenhouse or something like that. So there are a number of reasons for it. You know, we look at
things like some of these burnt toasts and set off the detector, so although that's not
a fire, that's a case where the fire alarm actually did its job. Detected smoke, fortunate in
this case, the smoke didn't grow beyond the toaster, but it's still activated in response.
But we also, on the other hand, were people who had that, they fed a toaster of them going
and left the room to go do something else, and that toaster did cause the kitchen fire.
So we have to be careful, though.
So about 50% of those false alarms are
I'm going to call preventable either it's the fire alarm.
Equipment was not maintained properly.
It was malicious false alarms.
Some of these pull the pull station or things like when somebody
has a fire drill or they're working on the alarm system.
They don't notify the alarm company and we get called out.
the lows are absolutely preventable.
So we do have, and we have had for a number of years, a false alarm fee by-law, so we
are able to charge for certain false alarms.
Currently we have what we call a first call as free policy.
So that in place, that means about 20 less than 25% of false alarms we go to are really eligible
to be available.
And so, in an attempt to kind of get this number down, we have proposed in the 2026
Feason charges of structure and some increased charges and removal of the first call
free for certain fossil arms such as if somebody a technician goes and works on the
fossil arm and doesn't call us. That's absolutely preventable and they shouldn't get a free
for that. So we're looking at that to just try to recoup some of those costs.
Now, the huge driver for us is response to the QEW because QEW is provincial land.
Really, our responses aren't really covered by municipal taxes. So we're able to recoup
cost through the province through the MTO fire department invoicing program. Unfortunately, we only
get a fraction of what we should from the MTO. So as an example, 140,000 roughly claimed in 2024
for the 97 calls we had, but our actual costs were over 180,000. So even if we got 100% of the
As you can see from the graph, in the last 20-24, particularly the bad word, we only made 36% of the claims.
Really, in 2024, do that shortfall. It costs taxpayers of Lincoln, but $132,000 on a pocket for the privilege of going to the QW and providing municipal service on a provincial road.
And some of the reasons why the MTO does not pay something they just flatly deny the claims
or they reduce the claims as they see fit, probably the biggest reason is what they term
of no service call, so if we get called out for somebody's report of the car fire and we
go out there and we say, well it's not actually a fire, it's an overheated rad, and we have
We've incurred costs to go out there, but the MTO denies those claims in Southern Ontario.
They do allow those claims in Northern Ontario and that's another story, but there are moves
of foot to, you know, lobby the province to address that and there's, you know, initiatives underway
to try to address that as we speak.
Another one of our huge drivers is the vehicle operating cost.
You know, over that past five years, a little bit of a smaller subset here.
The CPI was 17% increase in operating costs for fire vehicles.
We're talking maintenance fuel.
That kind of thing has increased 39% so more than twice the rate of inflation.
And on top of that, it's taking us longer to get replacement parts, so our fire trucks
or equipment is on the service longer, some of the supply chain issues that occurred during
COVID really haven't bounced back to normal fully.
And this is consistent with an American report on the American Transportation Research Institute
It's similar in Canada, where they're seeing what close to a 38% increase as well.
So I mentioned, you know, we've been volunteer fire service for over 175 years.
And while I say volunteer, a lot of people really don't realize how that works.
So really when somebody signs up to be a volunteer fire fire, whether it's in Lincoln or most other place in Ontario.
So nowadays everybody gets a pager, so they're on call 24, 7, 365 days a year.
They're always on call.
They don't get paid standby, they don't do anything.
They're just always on call.
Now obviously people have lives, so they have to go to work.
They have family functions and things like that.
So we count on the volunteer firefighters being available about 25% of the time to go to calls.
The problem is, as the number of calls increase,
the rule of thumb is once you hit a call a day on average,
You're really, really burdening a volunteer system and we're 850 to 900 calls for pushing.
So we're well above twice that and you know if you can talk to some of the volunteers, it'd be nice if it was just an average of one call or two calls a day.
But of course, never works that way.
You'll go for a few days and all of a sudden you're called out four or five, six calls in a day and if your employer is gracious enough to allow you to
to go to calls, they do raise their eyebrows when somebody is leaving their desk four or five
or six calls a day. In fact that's just not sustainable. So although we had counted on a response
rate of 25% for our volunteers, that is really, really tough nowadays to get. And you can see
some of the challenges we're facing, not just on in Lincoln, but all across Ontario and
row Canada, just the numbers of volunteer firefighting fighters are just declining.
It just seems people just simply don't have the time or the ability to do this anymore
and meet the demands.
As I mentioned, the number of calls and the complexity of the calls is increasing.
You know, I look at a typical rope rescue calls, say, balls, falls, and that can take
hours, and you or any kind of a major structure fire is a very complex, very dangerous call.
It just takes a lot of huge amount of training, a huge commitment.
As I mentioned, training is sort of a patient requirements, and I see over fellow firefighters
in the audience, he happened to start the same day I did back in 1988, and I think back
fondly where we showed up on the Tuesday night, here's your boots, the alarm went off,
OK, getting a truck go, we had no idea what we're doing.
Was a lot of fun back then?
Yes.
But did that meet health and safety?
Did it meet community expectations for performance?
Absolutely not.
So I'm happy to see where we've made great strides.
Keep people safe to ensure that people go home at the end of the day.
But that comes at a cost, not only in terms of money,
but commitment for the volunteer firefighters.
And again, like anything, you know, the increased call volume, the increased demands on their
time.
It takes a toll in terms of the work-life balance.
And the other thing we're finding too is quite often volunteer firefighters and Lincoln was
the same way.
A lot of people lived in the community that they served and, you know, I'd look at a lot
of the farm people and things like that, the alarm would go off, they were in town, they
could just respond to the call.
We're seeing more and more as town changes and grows.
We're seeing less and a lot more people
are working out of town, so.
So just for context,
so link and volunteer
system on the left-hand side there, 24, 7, 3, 65 service.
We have 15 front-run appraisers, 118 NFP certified
firefighters, and so our budget for wages and benefits for that entire service
there. You can see 1.4 million and you can see the picture there while that all
entails.
For context you look at one full-time fire truck, that's four firefighters on
truck with wages and benefits that is 3.4 million dollars to staff that on a 24-hour basis.
So you can see the tremendous value we have in our volunteer system and the importance
it is to sustain a volunteer system as long as we can.
I think if I had a crystal ball it, my years of experience says we're pushing the limits
when entirely volunteer system likely will be next year, perhaps not the year after that,
but sometime in the next little while we'll be looking possibly at at least a full-time
contingent maybe to start during the, you know, a shift during the daytime hours to help
us hold, but I think the parting words here, if I may, is the investment to sustain the volunteer
system for as long as we can, really is the most cost-efficient and the most effective
delivery of service to the community.
And with that, I'm happy to add it to any questions, so thank you, Chief Hudson.
We are going to go to Councillor Murray for first question.
Go ahead, Councillor.
Thank you very much, Chair, through you to Chief Hudson.
Thank you very much for the presentation, really good information.
I will say that today was taken to work day, and I took my grand-kid to work, and we
had a tour of the Beamsel Fire Station.
It's quite a place, and I know the work you do that.
You guys do, there is very, very important.
So thank you for that.
I just wanted a little bit of clarity.
I know that you have attended Amel and Roma, and you, as well as other fire chiefs, have
advocated to the province.
As they're continuing to increase the mandated services, as they're continuing to increase
the mandated training that they're requiring of fire services, is there any
conversations happening around them also increasing funding, so not through taxpayers, but
like the municipal tax base, but through provincial funding, is there any conversations around
that?
Yeah, through you, Mr. Chair, yeah, thank you for that question.
Absolutely.
This is something that we've been advocating very strongly for because every municipality on
Ontario and beyond is facing exactly the same budget crunches.
I'm happy to say that the province has been listening.
The last two years we've had a fire protection grant to start,
at least getting some funds rolling from the province towards
the Ms. Pola delivery fire protection services.
The grants last year in this year as well, the two phases of the grants
have focused on firefighter safety, cancer prevention,
things of that nature.
So they really have put their focus on, you know, the most critical point, you know, we
continue to advocate, you know, it's really, you know, we talked about infrastructure gaps
and funding gaps, you know, certainly in the fire service, we have a gap here as well.
And we continue to advocate to help municipal fire departments, you know, meet the shortfalls
and because you're absolutely right, you know, not that I begrudge having provincial certification,
I do think it's a good thing, but that was enacted.
With no funding whatsoever from the province, and I know there's a lot of smaller municipalities in particular that really struggle with some of the costs associated with that.
So, yes, so, you know, I remember on the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs, you know, from a provincial level, there's a huge opportunity to see and govern relations component to that, and we continue to work and try to get some provincial dollars.
Thank you. Another question if I could. So then you also note significant increase in demand.
And I know you also see some of that is false alarms and other challenges are people who don't necessarily,
you're not used to seeing brush fires. They're not from the countries so they're not used to seeing those sorts of things. I understand that.
But what else is driving that increased demand?
Is it that we are growing as a municipal?
Is it the increased housing that we're seeing
in that's driving that increased demand?
Or is there something else at work here?
I thank you through Mr. Chair.
That's an excellent question.
And that is something we're looking at as well.
I think it's a bit of a number of things.
Certainly it's a function of the population growth.
It's a function of some, I'm going to say,
Darius, I change in demographic.
You know, I look at some of the expectations,
some of the demands that are placed on the fire service now.
I think are greater than what we saw maybe some years ago.
And I'm going to use the term perhaps people in years gone past
or maybe a little bit more self-reliant.
I think of things like somebody hears a smoke alarm beeping so rather than take the trouble
to check your own responding to a smoke alarm and say, oh, he's a new battery.
Well, that's called a fire department and you know, not that we regret going and helping
the public.
But I think there's more and more cases of that where there's expectations, where the fire
services going to come and provide service no matter what the situation is, you know,
and in terms of, you know, there's certainly growth in terms of additional people coming
in additional housing, but part of this too is as the density increases to that puts a whole
different fire risk profile and play as well. So it's not necessarily more fires, although it
we'd have to run some more statistics as the fires we do get tend to spread faster and even
more resources and things of that nature. So I guess that's a long way, long winter way of
saying that it takes a lot more study, it takes a lot more ticking over the rocks and seeing
some of the root causes of some of this. And that's something that we're undertaking now.
You know, the SPIR service review we're doing is, you know, one of the first steps in looking at that.
Great. And my final question if I could. So you mentioned the MTO and the fact that as a
little service, you can you can claim money back from the MTO, which they don't very often like to give you.
It's my understanding that you can also go after insurance companies. So if there is a car accident on the highway
that you respond to, you can go after insurance companies. Do you see a lot of reimbursement for insurance companies?
is that similar to the MTO, that it's a struggle to get that payment?
I can say that we do have in our recent charges by the ability to build drivers for motor vehicle
collisions on local roads.
We typically build the non-residents, and although we've had it on the books for a couple
years now, it's just this year we've actually had the resource to be able to start that,
And I can say it's very, very labor intensive to collect that.
And you know, I've had this conversation with my colleagues in finance, you are core service
and fire services, you know, going to calls and providing emergency services.
We're fighting more and more of our time is now devoted to accounts receivable, and that's
not really our core service, so we're still trying to figure out some of the logistics involved
in that, but it is, although we do, we have been getting significant revenue from it,
It throws a cost in terms of resources and people to do it, so.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councillor Murray.
And we have Councillor Ray FX.
Yeah, thank you, Chair Russell.
So, Chief, thanks for the presentation.
It's quite a daunting presentation that goes way beyond this budget.
I mean, I think for the first time in my years as a Councillor,
I'm hearing from you from a chief that's been around for 37 years that the pressures that we're
feeling and that we're feeling is a municipality are getting to a bit of a breaking point in such
that the volunteer system is in jeopardy in some way, shape, or form. So I look at all the things
you put up there, the calls are the call volumes increasing by 55%. And while that's happening,
you know, you're looking for a response rate for your 118 volunteers, but that's increasing.
So what can we do as a volunteer system right now to look at the way that we do things?
And so through you chair, my first question, you know, when we look at response to the highway,
and I would never suggest for a nanosecond that we stop going out there.
But you just have to go on the highway yesterday. I'm driving a Burlington and there's a five car pile-up at Fruitland Road in a four car pile-up at 50
These things are increasing
What can we do as a volunteer system in terms of the way we dispatch the way we
You know the way we do our call outs. It's a volunteer system obviously
You know, there's an expense when we get out there and and is there any way we can look internally to
You know, just the system that we, you know, you can't always do things the same way.
So I'm wondering as, as, as, as the MTO callouts continue to increase and we're not getting,
you know, we're not getting in return.
Is there any way internally we can look at the way we do our process?
Okay, through you, Mr. Chair, absolutely, that's one of the things we're focusing on.
I think back, you know, four years ago when we embarked on this shared service,
pilot with grumpsby. And I think the primary reason for doing that is to address some of the
issues you just raised in the Council are seeing increased levels of service. We can't continue
to do the same thing over and over again. So I think some of the thinking there is if we
get together with the Department can we do some things more efficiently. Whether or not that
with successful or not is a debate for another day, but through that process, though, I will
say to the good, is that we have the benefit of a study that's going to be released very shortly
that looks at some of these things and setting some KPIs, some key performance indicators that
we can actually measure so we can make some informed decisions. We're looking at the types of calls
we go to. And what kind of resources do we actually need for that? So rather than just shotgun,
see, you know, shotgun approach, you send everybody to everything, and not that we necessarily
do that. But to drill down a little bit further, so we look at the risk involved in the different
types of calls we go to. Are there types of calls we really don't need to go to that could
be better handled by another agency? For instance, right off the top of my head, I think
of fireworks complaints, you know, every year we get
anfo fireworks complaints come to the fire department, you know,
it's, to me it's a bit of a, not the most effective use of our
resources from that because it's, it's really a nuisance by law
complaint by the time the fire trucks get there, the fireworks are
long gone and unless they've somebody's actually started a fire
with the fireworks, that's not necessarily the best agency to, to respond
of that type of call. That's just one example off the top of the head and yeah, it's really
like I said, it's going through the list of things we do, what do we need to do, of the things
we do need to do, how do we best match our resources that we're deploying to the risk we anticipate.
And as you'll hear in the next few months, we'll be spending particular focus on looking into
that delving in that, there would be some recommendations coming down the pipe in the coming
months as we try to evolve and try to address these challenges, we'll be before Council
for it.
But in terms of your comic about, you know, you're bringing all this stuff forward in a budget
season.
And really, the main reason for that is because, as you see this particular year, there
some significant increases in the fire budget in terms of the firefighter wages, and I think
it was important to identify these are the reasons why it's not that, you know, here's
the reasons why, and just trying to, you know, inform council about, you know, some of the
pressures we're facing, so when we're looking at the budget, it's more of an informed decision,
And looking at further future budgets too, having this in the back, you know, this is kind of setting the stage for the next few years as well.
And I appreciate that.
And I really like to hear the fact that you're looking, moving forward, looking at KPIs, looking at metrics, so that we can improve.
So through you chair, you know, this is all good stuff, but it's a little overwhelming to think that, you know, these pressures are being put on us.
So, you know, your last bullet point on the bottom of your slide in bold red was it's important for this council to continue to make investments.
And I think, I mean as long as I've been on council for three terms, I think we've done that.
And I think, you know, there is a responsibility to make sure that our volunteer system can be sustainable.
But when I look at all the things that are happening and the fact that this is a big
budget driver now, we talk about policing, but now fire in Lincoln is a big budget driver.
So how can we, we always talk about communication, talking about surveys and talking about
all this stuff?
I look at the way other municipalities communicate what fire does.
And I was on the website today for the town of Nagorno Lake, and I see that every month, they put up,
I think they call it a dashboard, and I know you used to use it at Tormont.
And it's a pretty valuable tool to communicate to residents.
This particular one is an example, 85 incidents in the month of August.
Six fire calls, 29 fire alarm, 16 medical calls, 12 motor vehicle, six gas carbon, and 16 assistants.
and that goes out every month and I think if we could do that it would be a great way for
this council to support the fire department but to demonstrate to our residents this is why we're
investing and this is what's happening I mean sure people go see when the fire trucks go out
and they follow along and oh it's just a gas or you know a brush fire but these calls are real
And you guys are out in the highway in the middle of the night with JAWS on a life.
I think if we can, I don't know, through you,
chair to the chief, I'm wondering what your thoughts on that.
If this, if this is a tool that we can be using,
to make sure that our investment is better understood in the community.
Through Mr. Chair, you know, Councilor I couldn't agree more with you.
I absolutely think it's important to communicate, you know, exactly what you're said.
We did move to a different a new software provider for fire records management called first do and first do actually we've just recently implemented and we're just doing testing on a forward facing
a community facing dashboard similar to Nagron like it so it's not quite up and ready yet but we're working on it we're working on some bugs but
that is certainly one of the top things on our work plan is to get that.
And again, this dub tails into what I was just saying about the KPIs as well, and our ability to collect this information and put it in, you know, a user friendly graphical format that it's.
You know, very easy to get to from our website.
I, again, I agree a wholeheartedly that we should be doing this and, you know, we are committed to doing that and flushing this a little bit more.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate that response and it sounds very positive, but I'm wondering through you, Chair, if the CAO can maybe, you know, put it put an endorsement on that. I think this is really really important and, you know, I don't know when the chief is walking out the door and, and Sianaro and I'm out of here, but I, you know, I'm, you're retiring and I want to make sure that, you know, this is a commitment that the municipality can,
and can support through you, through your chair to the CEO.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for the opportunity to weigh in.
I just also looked up what Niagara on the lake is doing,
and I know both director, D&N, and manager, Lilliana, over there.
Also, I think looking up what you were talking about right now,
and so I think, absolutely, I love the ease and user interface
that they've got.
There's both a GIS back side to it,
But there's also a very public facing visual piece to it.
And I think it is a large budget driver.
I think residents would benefit from knowing the types of calls we go to and what we're
actually doing.
All right, so absolutely something that I will work on both with communications as well as the chief.
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity and I just want to thank Chief Hudson for this presentation.
I think it was really well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Grenay and Councillor Petrieva.
Thank you, Chair Russell. Chief Hudson, thank you very much for this question. First question.
And a couple years ago, you came to AMO with us and we advocated for a change in the emergency measures act with the run-of-stay of emergency.
So knowing that the MTO is short-changing us and that, do you think that we, you know, this year at AMO, this should be one of the delegations that we go to to the Ministry of Transportation to say,
Hey, pay us for what you owe and stop the neckland diamond.
Thank you, I thank you, Mr. Chair.
You know, I've had conversations with the CEO
on this very topic.
Certainly, Amos, a possible venue.
We were also talking about possibly Roma as well,
coming up.
Yeah, Roma, Amos, just keep hammering away at it, right?
Every opportunity we get to reinforce the message
And drive it home, like, you know, this imbalance that they paid Northern Ontario Firefighting Services for this and not the South, that's, yeah, it's called Essing and Being.
Second question through the chair.
Thank you so much again for slide number 12.
And this was the whole rationale behind the shared fire service.
is this slide right here and I know our council got it right when we did the
interview but and I would really really appreciate that this slide gets attached
to that December 3rd report when it comes out to show grimsby council the
misstep or falley of their ways that this is going to cost them dearly because of
of the pettiness so I'm going to stop right there because I can go on for about 20 minutes, but
Good idea
Thank you, Councillor Pachary of our Councillor McClick.
Thank you very much through you to the chief
Appreciate that you know count both Councillor
I dream of myself and the mayor familiar with this fire and the expensive at all and the complexities of it
being on that board
question I have is like
When I look here, a total response cost per call, 1335, does the public know this?
Are they just calling 911 because it's free and they think that, you know, firefighters
are just sitting around waiting for a call?
I, along the lines of the communication piece, I think that if people knew it was costing
them if they saw these sorts of numbers that hey listen you call 911 because your neighbor's
trash cans on fire it's going to cost 14 on a rock. They might think twice about making that
call. Do we do any sort of education program on that?
A three-master chair probably not as much
as we should but you're absolutely right. There are things and I think this comes back to the education
some peace, or possibly some sort of a dashboard, or something of that nature.
Frankly, I think some people would be concerned, and I think some people wouldn't care
to eye pay taxes.
I want to get my very truck when I call my fire truck.
But I think the point is well taken, I think, although we don't want to dissuade people
from calling in case it is a real emergency, we're trying to steal a sense of fiscal responsibility
I guess you'd call it to say, hey, you know, if it's something that's not in emergency, maybe there's a better way of handling it.
So it's a bit of a tough one, but yeah, I think through education through, whether it's the dashboard or by other means.
But even this number, I think, you're right, I don't think a lot of people would even know what this number was.
So if we were even a public set number, it's $1300 and some odd dollars per call.
Yeah, I had just no consumer gas back in the day used to have a slogan called Before You
Dig.
You know, maybe we think before you call it like you try to decide for ourselves what sort
of an emergency is really an emergency.
And I look at the ambulance service, you know, if you get, if you call an ambulance, you're
paying $45 no matter what.
Do we move to that in the fire service as well?
I can tell you to be widely on popular, I don't know if I want to go down that road, but,
You know, as we continue with the face sees budget challenges,
you know, we look at different models, I don't know,
it's interesting to answer.
Another question I had through is,
when I look at the one slide with slide five with the COVID,
right, there is a reduction in calls,
or there's a suspension of certain medical calls during COVID.
I'm just curious,
what effects,
What negative effects might have, did we, did we observe during that time?
Did we, or did we observe any negative effects of that?
During that time, normally we respond to medical assistance calls
to assist the ambulance of medical calls.
During COVID, Nagrams suspended their Turing Criteria.
So we would not go to most medical calls,
unless it was absolutely serious.
Part of that was to protect the health of the responders
we did, Mono Explos, firefighters going
to difficulty breathing calls and then catching COVID
and that has a whole other thing.
So the COVID years were a bit of a two-fold,
so we suspended a lot of training.
And we suspended a number of medical calls,
like I said, our our terrain criteria was modified.
And the other piece, too, was I don't know if you recall, but I can think of times where there was virtually no traffic whatsoever on the QEW.
People just weren't driving the work, they weren't commuting, so our MVCs were down quite significantly.
I understand all that. I think a lot of calls are medical calls, and I'm not sure, I'm trying to understand what the consequences were with respect to that particular piece.
and a possible reduction of deploying one or two fire trucks for a medical call.
And a third question, and it kind of winds back to like the calls and firefighter fatigue,
and how do we, when it's 1,400, how firefighters know how many volunteers are paid on call,
long tears are attending racing to the hall and I ask that question because I happen to be
in Ottawa visiting my brother and he sits on a volunteer fire department and he has an
app on his phone and I guess it's called who's responding or something like that.
I asked him I said wow and it tells him exactly who's going and what kind of call and
everything like that. He says it's a company in Brockville and it's nice because he knows
that four guys or five guys or five people or five women or whatever are showing up
to a call and he can decide whether or not he skips out of the dinner table or makes that
extra effort to go and possibly reducing like 10 or 12 people showing up for a call that
required four or five. Do we, are we looking at something like that? So we've had that system
for quite some time. It's called iron responding. It's the one we use very similar. The problem
with that is not everybody uses it. Not everybody has their phone with them at all times.
You are our primary way of alerting people through a pager and depending on, you know, if you're
on the tractor or whatever, you might not have your phone on you. And then there are simply some
people digital, it's not convenient to, they're not technically savvy enough to want to use it.
So it is used to a limited extent and it is helpful for, I'm going to say, the first trucker
too, but it's never 100% accurate depiction of how many people are responding.
So, again, I'm not sure, I just, it's just something that he experiences and he says
it's fantastic.
I have cell service as well as the two-way radio service and I can see exactly
it's real time. So that was just something I learned that I'm not sure.
I'm sure. Yeah. Can I give a word? I'd love for everybody to use it. Yeah.
Because there's certainly all the time, but that's just not the practical reality at this point.
So yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McLean. I'm just glad your last question
wasn't going to go to a call time during the Spanish flu. So I'll go ahead. Councillor
I'm a Gemma.
Up next.
Councillor Rimer.
Up next.
Councillor Regema.
Back up again.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for your presentation.
Thank you for all of for the complete presentation and allowing us to give all this thought
to things before the operating budget and for years to come.
So my question is similar to what Councillor Mikkelik was talking about and about the dashboard
So you mentioned that some people call because their battery is going off and they're a smoke detector.
That's a, you know, probably an example of one that, you know, you don't need to go to,
you've got a lot on your plate, your whole team has a lot on your plate.
Education is its prevention and it also prevents, I mean, it prevents fires and it also prevents unnecessary calls.
How do you feel in terms of your ability to, do you have the resources that you need?
You and your team to provide enough education to the public, for example, things like that.
If the fire alarm is beeping, it doesn't mean that it's a fire alarm.
If it's a fire alarm, you'll know it.
Through Mr. Chair, a great question, because every fire we can prevent through prevention efforts,
through public education is one, less we have to respond to.
It's a lot more cost-effective to send a fire prevention officer, to help out with some
bad or prevention or helping somebody with their smoke clamp.
So when I say recommending that you invest in the service and invest in the volunteers,
I think part of that could be, as we continue to grow, not only investing in the response,
part of that, but investing in our fire prevention, our public education, pieces of the department
too. And, you know, this is why some of the key performance indicators are so important
where we can start tracking some of these things. So if we implement some sort of a prevention
program, or a public education initiative, we can actually measure, you know, all the fact
of was that have we can we blitz the neighborhood with smoke alarms and we can kind of track
calls before and after we do that. Things like that. Other municipalities are doing that and
I know there's some pretty neat software tools using JAS that people can actually do eat maps
of the city to marry up some of the smoke alarm check programs versus how many calls they get in
that same neighborhood and so yeah they are working so we're trying to move towards that so yeah
So an investment in prevention and PubMed really is a good thing and it helps to kind of mitigate
some of these increase in calls.
I could see that.
Okay.
Thank you for that.
Thank you.
Councilor Ranjama.
Vice Chair Rhymer.
We put a bow on this.
I'm not good with bows, but I'll do my best.
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks.
Chief for this.
Thanks for taking the time for this report.
and bringing it, not bringing it to our attention, but I think reminding us and giving us a marker.
In time, slide 11, this one question or sort of one thought Safari, maybe.
Slide 11, you go through the challenges facing volunteer fire services and the recruitment.
And I want to focus on the retention part of it having growing up here and knowing a lot of the men and women on the volunteer service.
How do you, in your experience or are there other things that we can besides more money and more training to help with retention?
Not that that's the only thing, but I think it's one of the key things like is there is there a bridge something between volunteer fire service and and and full-time fire service that you can go to or is there a
I know there's some you know communities that black too, but I I just that the retention time to one is that you see the retention part is is a I think is a big
Factor is there something that you can add or that we that you could say this is something we could use to help retain
young men and women in our volunteer service through you chair
Thank you Mr. Chair. Yes, this is actually a
fairly complex topic. You know, we're talking about how do we motivate people and we're finding that, you know, everybody's got different motivations.
We have different generations involved in, you know, what motivates one particular group of individuals doesn't necessarily motivate the others. Some are very focused on, you know,
Reuneration, monetary, and crewboard.
We're saying to that, although we're facing people leaving and we're dealing with the retention, Lincoln is actually doing fairly well comparatively, we use the lose about 5% of our workforce through attrition and people moving on, going elsewhere.
That's actually a relatively low number in terms of volunteer fire service.
I know a lot of departments are on a terror that, you know, they're double digits easily every year they lose.
So, so, we're doing, obviously, something right could we improve, obviously.
And, you know, I look at, you know, the recognition and awards night that council presents every year.
I think that goes a long way to recognize, you know, the contributions our folks have.
I know that's really appreciated, and as we look at the budget every year and we're looking
at must-have, we want to have needs to have things like that, I know it's always a struggle
to keep things in the budget and fortunately we've been able to keep that in and I think
it's really important in terms of investing in our service and investing in the folks we
have.
So things like that are there other things that we can do to keep people, as I say, you know,
you know, I've heard people throw things, you know, is there benefits, are there pension opportunities,
you know, whole gamut of things.
And I think that's something that really needs a lot more study, you know, some stakeholders
are engagement with some of the people and just, you know, see what really motivates you
and why do you stay, having exit interviews with people at least and say, you know,
can you explain, you know, what's going on, why are you leaving?
because you're busy in life, so we're engaging in all those things, but until we get 100%
retention all the time and everybody's happy, there's always room for improvement.
Thank you, Chief.
Thank you, Cheryl.
Thank you, Mr. Vice-chair.
Thank you, Chief.
I've had that in-depth presentation and great Q&A.
Just remind everybody to log back into EQ, in case you have not.
We have the vote coming up.
There are no further discussions. I have a motion moved by Councillor Pachareva, the committee receiving
file for information report FN-12-25 and associated presentation regarding the 2026 capital budget.
I will now ask our clerk to open the vote.
Thanks, Chair. And the vote is now open.
Thank you. And I will close that vote.
That carries, Chair.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. We have no confidential items.
do we have any committee remarks seeing none? Just a reminder before we adjourn that, oh, we do.
All right. Okay, Mayor Easton up first.
Very much Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Council for their comprehensive questions this evening.
And I have made a few notes based on concerns and potential suggestions.
Also, I also made a list of making a list for a little while about additions that may be an impact on the operating budget.
So my only ask of you would be if you can remember what you've said because it is a very normal response to potentially make a suggestion to increase service level.
I'm not sure what we're going to do with those because the CAO has been really tearing this operating budget apart.
So we may have to have another discussion the next time we meet on the operating budget, and if you want those things to be considered, I believe we need to do that with the understanding that we need to understand that there is no flex in the system and there will be less flex in the system next year.
So we need to go into the operating discussion with that knowledge so that we know where to put our
Put our ducks if there's something that's really really important and that is my only comment leaving off for the next meeting Mr. Chairman
Thank you
Thank you madam mayor
I can answer today
so through you
I think I think that's a great point by by Madam mayor and I know it's her budget, but
There was no discussion, it's in the binder, there was no discussion whatsoever with regards
to BDSS.
So I'm assuming that there's going to be considerable discussion, you know, considering this
is probably one of the biggest legacy projects we have in front of us.
I'm just wondering,
so based on what the mayor is saying, that if we're coming here with
operating, you know, questions that are going to flex the system. I'm just wondering
through you, through you chair, if the CAO could maybe give us some insight into what
we might be hearing with regards to BDSS as we go into November the 12th because I think
it's important that we come prepared, you know, knowing what we've been told by the
work that there's some deadlines.
So, before you jump on, Michelle, again, just a reminder that after the 12th, there is still
an opportunity for amendments going into a potential meeting for the 24th, where you can
make amendments based on that discussion at the 12th.
But, Michelle, go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think we can be prepared to answer more questions or maybe provide council more information.
Obviously, there's an increase cost as it relates to some of the janitorial maintenance,
building supplies, programs supplies, and insurance, year one, we absolutely use it our best
estimate. We used a lot of the information that the school board provided us, but knowing
that the school didn't operate at the same way as the municipality operates, both in terms
of hours of operation, after hours, and so forth. We can definitely give council a little
bit of that information and bring you up to speed, I think, a little bit, and it is in
presentation when we discuss operating a little bit in terms of where we're at what we've
heard, what are the next steps, some of the internal work we want to do, some of the work
we want to do with Council in terms of setting up a small working group. So yeah, I can definitely
be in a position to share more of that come the 12th. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor
process. So obviously we have a deadline coming up of this Friday, November the 7th,
for the next submission of amendments. They could be related to capital. They could be proactive
related to operations. They would then be positioned at that November the 12th meeting,
where we will review and discern what they're not, they would get voted on or not. And then
there's still an opportunity. If need be for the following meeting, if there is requirement
on the 24th. So deadlines for that as well. So if you have any questions about that process,
again, please reach out to the Courts Department or Director Tuna Kitis. They can fill
it some more information or assist with any templates being filled out. I see no further questions.
So I'm going to call this meeting adjourned at 20 hours and 57 minutes. That's correct.
Not a bear.
Okay.