07a - December 16, 2025 Finance Committee Agenda PackageOZ5
ElgmCounty
Finance Committee
Orders of the Day
Tuesday, December 16, 2025, 5:30 p.m.
Council Chambers
450 Sunset Drive
St. Thomas ON
Note for Members of the Public:
Please click the link below to watch the meeting:
https://video.isilive.ca/elgincounty/live.html
Accessible formats available upon request.
1. Call to Order
2. Approval of Agenda
3. Adoption of Minutes
4. Disclosure of Pecuniary Interest and the General Nature Thereof
5. Delegations
6. Reports/Briefings
6.1 Director of Financial Services/Treasurer - Business Plan 2026 Recap
6.2 Director of Financial Services/Treasurer - Public Engagement Report
7. Other Business
8. Correspondence
9. Closed Meeting Items
10. Motion to Rise and Report
11. Date of Next Meeting
12. Adjournment
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Finance Committee
Minutes
December 2, 2025, 9:00 a.m.
Council Chambers
450 Sunset Drive
St. Thomas ON
Members Present: Warden Grant Jones, Chair
Deputy Warden Ed Ketchabaw
Councillor Dominique Giguere
Councillor Mark Widner
Councillor Andrew Sloan (virtual)
Councillor Todd Noble
Councillor Mike Hentz
Councillor Richard Leatham (virtual)
Members Absent: Councillor Jack Couckuyt
Staff Present: Blaine Parkin, Chief Administrative Officer/Clerk
Jennifer Ford, Director of Financial Services/Treasurer
Nicholas Loeb, Director of Legal Services
Peter Dutchak, Director of Engineering Services
Brian Masschaele, Director of Community and Cultural Services
Mat Vaughan, Director of Planning and Development
Holly Hurley, Director of People & Culture
Carolyn Krahn, Manager of Economic Development, Tourism &
Strategic Initiatives
Jeff Brooks, Manager of Emergency Management
Ryan Terpstra, Manager of Corporate Facilities
Jason Warren, Manager of IT
Katherine Thompson, Manager of Administrative
Services/Deputy Clerk
Jenna Fentie, Legislative Services Coordinator
Stefanie Heide, Legislative Services Coordinator
1. Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 9.00 a.m. with Warden Jones in the chair.
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2. Approval of Agenda
Resolution Number: FC25-10
Moved by: Councillor Hentz
Seconded by: Deputy Warden Ketchabaw
RESOLVED THAT the agenda for the December 2, 2025 Finance Committee
meeting be approved as presented.
Motion Carried.
3. Adoption of Minutes
Resolution Number: FC25-11
Moved by: Councillor Widner
Seconded by: Councillor Noble
RESOLVED THAT the minutes of the Finance Committee meeting held on
November 18, 2025 be adopted.
Motion Carried.
4. Disclosure of Pecuniary Interest and the General Nature Thereof
None.
5. Delegations
None.
6. Reports/Briefings
6.1 Director of Financial Services/Treasurer - 2026 Business Plan -
Levels of Service and Capital Plan
The Director of Financial Services/Treasurer provided a presentation for
the report on 2026 Business Plan - Levels of Service and Capital Plan.
This also included a discussion on Corporate Memberships.
Resolution Number: FC25-12
Moved by: Councillor Giguere
Seconded by: Councillor Hentz
RESOLVED THAT the County join the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities
Initiative.
Motion Carried.
6.2 Director of Financial Services/Treasurer - Service Level Changes
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The Director of Financial Services/Treasurer and related Department
Heads provided a presentation on proposed Service Level Changes.
Council recessed at 10.21 a.m. and reconvened at 10.35 a.m.
Resolution Number: FC25-13
Moved by: Councillor Leatham
Seconded by: Councillor Hentz
RESOLVED THAT the proposed service level changes, except for the
removal of the student position POA, be approved as presented for
inclusion in the 2026 budget consultation.
Motion Carried.
Resolution Number: FC25-14
Moved by: Deputy Warden Ketchabaw
Seconded by: Councillor Sloan
RESOLVED THAT the proposed change to the student position POA
service level change be excluded from the 2026 Budget.
Motion Carried.
6.3 Director of Financial Services/Treasurer - Proposed Capital Projects
6.3.1 Summaries of 2026 Capital Budget and Capital Revenue by
Department
The Director of Financial Services/Treasurer provided a presentation
summarizing the 2026 Proposed Capital Budget Plan and the 2026
Capital Revenue Expected.
6.3.2 Ambulance and Corporate
The Director of Financial Services/Treasurer provided a presentation
on the 2026 Proposed Capital Projects for Ambulance and Corporate
services.
6.3.3 Emergency Measures and Fire School
The Manager of Emergency Measures provided a presentation on the
2026 Proposed Capital Projects for Emergency Measures and Fire
School services.
6.3.4 Information Technology
The Manager of IT provided a presentation on the 2026 Proposed
Capital Projects for Information Technology services.
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6.3.5 Library, Archives, and Museum
The Director of Community and Cultural Services provided a
presentation on the 2026 Proposed Capital Projects for Library,
Archives, and Museum services.
6.3.6 Long Term Care Homes
The Director of Financial Services/Treasurer provided a presentation
on the 2026 Proposed Capital Projects for Long Term Care Homes
services.
6.3.7 Engineering Services
The Director of Engineering Services provided a presentation on the
Engineering Services Capital Plan including the King Bridge
Replacement project (6952-38) and the Transportation Master Plan
project (9700-00).
6.3.8 Administrative Building
The Manager of Corporate Facilities provided a presentation on the
2026 Proposed Capital Projects for the Administrative Building.
6.3.9 Building and Property - Bobier Villa
The Manager of Corporate Facilities provided a presentation on the
2026 Proposed Capital Projects for the Bobier Villa Building and
Property.
6.3.10 Building and Property - Elgin Manor
The Manager of Corporate Facilities provided a presentation on the
2026 Proposed Capital Projects for the Elgin Manor Building and
Property.
6.3.11 Building and Property - Terrace Lodge
The Manager of Corporate Facilities provided a presentation on the
2026 Proposed Capital Projects for the Terrace Lodge Building and
Property.
Resolution Number: FC25-15
Moved by: Councillor Noble
Seconded by: Councillor Leatham
RESOLVED THAT the report titled "Engineering Services — Capital
Plan" from the Director of Engineering Services dated December 2,
2025 be received and filed; and
THAT an additional $400,000 be allocated to the King Bridge
Replacement project (6952-38); and
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7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
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THAT an additional $47,000 be allocated to the Transportation Master
Plan project (9700-00); and
THAT the proposed capital projects presented at the December 2,
2025 Finance Committee meeting, as amended to remove $30,000 for
asphalt paving at the administration building, be approved for inclusion
in the 2026 Budget Consultation.
Motion Carried.
Other Business
Correspondence
Closed Meeting Items
Motion to Rise and Report
Date of Next Meeting
The Finance Committee will meet again on December 16, 2025.
Adjournment
Resolution Number: FC25-16
Moved by: Councillor Widner
Seconded by: Councillor Leatham
RESOLVED THAT we do now adjourn at 12.32 p.m. to meet again on December
16, 2025 at 5.30 p.m.
Motion Carried.
Blaine Parkin,
Chief Administrative Officer/Clerk.
Warden Grant Jones,
Chair.
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ElginCounty
Report to Finance Committee
From: Jennifer Ford, Director of Financial Services
Date: December 16, 2025
Subject: Business Plan 2026 RECAP
Recommendation(s):
THAT the report titled "Business Plan 2026 RECAP" from the Director of Financial
Services/Treasuer dated December 16, 2025 be received and filed.
Introduction:
This year, the County Business Plan has been divided into three main areas for
Council's review and consideration: a Base Operational plan, Service Level
Enhancements, and a Capital Expenditure Plan.
The focus of this Recap report is to provide a high level overview of considerations
made throughout the building of the 2026 Business Plan for the County of Elgin.
To review the full 2026 Proposed Business Plan document please connect to it through
our website- V::7ttps ZZ i7gggg! Ighn ,',a/20266dg2t
Background and Discussion:
The budget process experienced a refresh over the past three years with the
onboarding of our new budget/reporting software. This year, the Executive Leadership
Team and some of our Management team members have been involved in the physical
creation of the 2026 Business Plan that is being receommended. The optimization of
our new budgeting software has revolutionized how budget documents are created and
has evolved into a more collaborative and tangible "hands on" experience for many
staff.
Finance Staff have provided advice and guidance throughout the budget build. Early in
the process it was determined that the creation of training videos providing detailed
information of each step along the way would be the preferred standard method to
enable on demand learning. These videos are embedded in the software as needed
and have been well received. Staff are able to move through the teachings at their own
pace and will be leveraged as a reference into the future. As processes evolve, videos
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can be modified to ensure they stay current and relevant to the County `s business
model using County examples to support learning.
Financial Implications:
CPI consideration for 2026
Many of our contractual obiligations are based on the November CPI numbers outlining
the October over October Consumer Price Index (CPI) number. This information is
released by Stats Canada on or about November 15t" of each year. In order to
facilitate earlier deliberation of the business planning process, staff utilized the
September CPI numbers to build the budget which, as expected, were reasonabily
close to the November amount. The September Ontario CPI number was released at
2.0% while the overall Canadian CPI was released as 2.4%.
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Wages and Benefits
Implementation of our new Budgeting software is ongoing and this year finance staff
finalized the implementation of the personnel budgeting module. This module enables
us to align our budgeting software to the positons or labour groups that are housed
within our payroll software program. The two systems are not directly connected for this
purpose but the personnel module provides many enhancements and helps facilitate-
- increases that can be universally adjusted by grades and benefits assigned
- further alignment with the payroll system's calculations so budgets and actuals
are reported in a like manner for better comparison on reporting
- better reporting with manager view to positions and costs that will enable
verification that positions align to staff complement.
- improved clarity of positions for audit and budgeting purposes
- use of labour pools — Hours can be compiled by per day needs to
accommodate shift workers
- FTE's are still being refined under this new module
Wages and benefits comparisons between the 2025 and 2026 business plan do reflect
a necessary shift between past practice reporting and our enhanced and newly
implemented reporting model. This realignment is most evident in our Long Term Care
departments where coverage hours were previously budgeted under benefits and now
these hours have been realigned to reflect the wage vs benefit portion of those
coverage hours more accurately. As a result, readers may notice instances of
decreases on the benefits lines and increases on the wages lines that more accurately
reflect the actuals expected.
Positions and labour pools have been reviewed to ensure that they align to their correct
grid and grade levels which are based on increases under contract or are anticipated for
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2026. These amounts do not specifically translate to the percentage of increase or
decrease outlined by department due to the above realignment in the personnel
module. Wages also include positions that are funded by one-time or ongoing funding
which were previously tracked by projects. Position projects align with our payroll
scheduling systems and can now be tracked in and reported on from our payroll
software eliminating duplication and additional work.
Capital Revenue previously reported on a Net Income Basis
Our prior budget plans have been provided to council on a global net income basis that
included some capital funding in what is now being defined as the base operational
plan. The previous presentation resulted in a final net income that was positive in
nature and was used to fund our capital program. In 2026, reporting shifts to a more
segregated model and requires that certain revenue that is capital funding in nature is
separated from operational funding. To clarify, year end audited statements will still be
based on net income for audit purposes.
Going forward, this shift will not be an issue to manage, however, for this year,
explanation is required to the reader on some differences between the 2025 operations
and the 2026 operations relative to performance and placement of some budget items.
The 2025 budget included some of this Capital funding within the Engineering
department which appears to have a large increase to its operations in 2026. In fact,
this change is due to decreases in revenue related to two funding envelopes being
shifted over to capital. The Canada Community Build Funding (CCBF) and Ontario
Community Infrastructure Funding (OCIF) totalling approximately $5M will be seen
again in the next round of reporting related to Capital funding. Additionally, the
Corporate Activities account will show a difference to due funding that was, and will
continue to be, received from the Province of Ontario that relates to repayment of the
Capital fund (Reserves) drawn down for the Terrace Lodge Rebuild. This is being
handled as Capital debt as the Ministry repays us for their share of that rebuild.
Further Streamlining the Operational Plan — Project use
During the 2026 Business Planning process, staff identified several opportunities to
remove duplication that included further defining the use of operational projects at the
department level. Identification of what is a project and what is regular business took
many of the "annual' projects such as painting, electrical upgrades, etc. and moved
them into regular business operational lines such as repairs and maintenance and
purchases services.
The budgeting software allows staff to track these needs by function and rolls the
information up to one line for the purpose of simplifying the budget view with actuals. At
any given time, staff can reference their budget to determine where items are to be
booked so there is no need for items to be tracked separately by project. Actual invoice
numbers and vendor names and amounts of invoices are imported daily to the budget
software so that departments can track their expenses.
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Project tracking has been used in the past to also track identified special positions that
may be funded by another source. As previously outlined, by using the personnel
module in the budgeting software, positions can now be set up for the purpose of
budgeting and adjusted accurately as needed. Granularity for review and accuracy is
available through the payroll software systems for reporting purposes. Managers
currently approve hours for payroll purposes and their review process begins at the time
of payroll rather than after it is paid and posted. As a result, it is not necessary for
reporting on these positions to be duplicated through the budget reporting software.
Further training has been identified and will be supported using custom inhouse training
modules to further this knowledge during the first year of use in 2026.
Amortization
Previous Operational plans included Amortization by department or function. This
information is necessary for the Financial Information Return and is required by function
for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Going forward, we will obtain this
information from our amortization software program as in the past but we will be
managing this as needed through the budget as a capital item. As a result, this year
amortization budgets previously reported under various departmental operational
budget plans have been removed. Where funding is provided for this purpose, we will
be ensuring to capture this to bill back to ensure reporting is maintained as needed.
Levels of Service Changes:
The 2026 Business Plan introduces Levels of Service Change Requests that are
submitted for items:
Related to Personnel (Position change) OR
Larger than $15,000 as set out in the County's purchasing policy
Requests are included using the department name and year along with a unique
number to create an identifier. A summary sheet was included that identifies the item
and Service Level change amount that has been requested to total the amounts for the
reader. Each request was supported by a separate sheet outlining detailed information
for review.
Proposed Capital Plan:
Each department package for the Capital Plan was supported by summary sheet listing
all projects currently in progress under that department or proposed to be in progress in
the next fiscal year. Comparator information includes the 2025 approved budget and
any Carryforward budget from 2024 in the first column of the documents. In the second
column, a number was forwarded from the first column if the department is requesting
to carryforward the expected remaining 2025 budget into 2026. The third column
contains the new year proposed budget as the 2026 Proposed Capital budget. The
fourth column provides the Proposed Project budget for 2026 plus any carryforward if
requested.
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As additional information, a detailed project summary sheet for each NEW proposed
project was provided. These sheets outline the need for the requested funding under
the 2026 Proposed Capital envelope, the amount being requested, and provided the
basis for focused discussion. The capital plans are also summarized by department in
the appendices of the online Business Plan.
Final Results of the 2026 Business Plan:
Each stage of the Business Plan above is one piece of the building block that when
stacked together leads us to the final result of "Building the 2026 Business Plan" for the
County. Below is an outline of how this comes together to shape the plan that delivers
services offered under the jurisdiction of the County. This year the levy required to
support the services within the plan equates to $51,138,828. After growth is
considered, the required change in tax would be an increase of 1.17% on the prior
year's levy.
Below is an outline of how the County portion of your tax bill will be affected for your
personal Home or Busniess for each $100,000 of your MPAC assessment .
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Advancement of the Strategic Plan:
Strategy #1 Collaborative Engagement and Communication
Goal 2: Expand Public Engagement
1. Launch a public engagement survey to understand preferred communication
methods.
2. Fully utilize the existing online platform for public feedback and real-time engagement
with the County
Public engagement in the development of the 2026 Business Plan advances Council's
directive to obtain information. Through various opportunities such as a period of online
consultation and a public Finance meeting, held outside business hours, ensures
ratepayers have an opportunity to have their say, indirectly and directly.
Strategy #3 Service Excellence and Efficiency
Goal 1: Leverage Technology to Enhance Service Delivery
Goal 2: Optimize the Business Planning Process
A redeveloped budget process for the 2026 business cycle has effectively driven
forward efficiencies, reduced duplicate reporting, and leaned on the available features
of newly acquired modernized software and technology. There is still work to do with
our goal focused on doing it right the first time.
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Local Municipal Partner Impact:
The County has many shared service arrangements with our Municipal Partners for
delivery of service such as the Roads Maintenance Agreement, Provincial Offenses,
and Collections. Partnerships also exist with Southwestern Public Health Unit and
separately with the City of St. Thomas for Social Services and Land Ambulance
Services.
Communication Requirements:
Further information related to the 2026 Business Plan is available on the County
website at:
Conclusion:
The final budget document has been updated to include information received from staff
during the first two meetings of the Finance Committee on Nov 16t" and Dec 2nd, 2026.
This report is provided as an over view of the process to date as we prepare to receive
public input.
All of which is Respectfully Submitted
Jennifer Ford
Director of Financial Services
Approved for Submission
Blaine Parkin
Chief Administrative Officer/Clerk
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Preamble
survey question:
We Want YOUR Feedback on the Elgin County 2026 Proposed Business Plan & Budget!
Elgin County Council is inviting resident, and businesses to particiipate in, shaping the County's 2026 budget by providing
i.ddback on the 2026 Proposed Business Plan&Budget. PublicIN is auc .. ld.termini ng vice levels, prog-ama, and
unfraall etuerdmana onts,whichwiII w lfinlately affect the County' a Levy and Ilex rands_
laagistmtlan Is aquire¢i to provide fie dback. ll are rot registered..1—dy, .1l k the survey hefton below and youwill be prompded
Ao reyi.ter. By ave—rinif.. yoe can stay Informed throughoutan, process and well re.celve regular uptlatles.
the public consultation period will Ivn from December 4- December 11, 20,25_ Phis is a valuable opportunity for resider
businesses to have their woke, heairi' and help shape Elgin's financial priorities.
the Image below pravidles a break of County Services vs. Local Municipal Services. We are looking for feedback on
County Services only! It you have feedback on your Local Municipal Services, Wyse cnnVact year Local Municipality.
Please note that while the City of St. Thomas is geographically located within Elgin County, St. Thomas is a separate
city from Elgin..
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