Chapter 6: 2023 Five-Year Consolidated Operating Plan

The City’s operating budget reflects the ongoing costs required to deliver valued programs and services for the community, costing $398 million in 2023 As stated in the Financial Plan Overview (Chapter 5), the method of the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities is based on the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles methodology adhered to for the preparation of Financial Statements and thus requires a number of adjustments including the elimination of certain accounts such as transfers to/from reserves upon consolidation and the recognition of the DCCs utilized in the Capital Plan This results in the recognition for reporting purposes of $453 million in revenues and $304 million in expenses

Revenues

The City receives its revenues from a variety of sources with taxation being the largest Property owners must pay property taxes based on the value of their property, unless the property is specifically exempted by the provincial legislation or by a permissive tax exemption bylaw passed by the City The remaining revenue is collected from other revenue sources such as fees, rates and service charges, municipal land sales, developer cash contributions, development capital asset contributions, grants, investment income and cost recoveries The decrease in 2020 reflects the impacts of the pandemic when a number of services and programs were suspended and various other revenue sources were affected Since then, the City has pivoted and continues to work towards servicing a growing community