City of Powell River’s annual report is in draft form and will be adopted after the public has the opportunity to provide input.
Scott Randolph, city director of properties, development and communications, said he was appearing before the August 18 committee of the whole meeting to present the draft annual report for the 2019 financial year.
“As you know, this is a legislated annual requirement,” said Randolph. “Normally, we would have been doing this in June but the province, because of the state of emergency, provided an extension on when this reporting could be done. We are here presenting it before the deadline of August 30, so we’re happy to have it ready to go.”
Randolph said one of the purposes of the annual report is to report on objectives and measures of the previous year and to include a statement of municipal objectives and measures for the current and following year.
He said that under the Community Charter, the annual report must include audited financial statements of the previous year, and details of each tax exemption provided by council, including the amount of property taxes that would have been imposed on a property if it was not exempted.
The document must include a report respecting municipal services and operations for the previous year and a progress report regarding objectives and measures established for the previous year. Another component is any declaration of disqualification of a person elected on council.
The report must have a statement of municipal objectives and measures that will be used to determine progress for the current and following year, and any other information council considers advisable.
“Because the new strategic priorities weren’t in place until December 2019, the corporate strategic priorities that were presented in the draft annual report are those that were passed and approved in 2016,” said Randolph.
He said in regard to financial impact from the creation of the document, there was none, other than to create hard copies internally.
“I really want to give kudos to all of the departments; this is a team effort in putting this year’s report together,” said Randolph. “The report will be made available for review by the public over the next two weeks so that we can receive any submissions from the public or comments from them, which will be presented to you at a meeting on September 3.”
The committee voted to make the annual report available to the public and bring it forward to the September 3 meeting for adoption.
