Windsor, London given 'F' in fiscal transparency by think tank

Published Apr 19, 2024 • Last updated 13 hours ago • 3 minute read

Windsor city hall is seen on Thursday, April 11, 2024. Photo by Taylor Campbell /Windsor Star

An independent think tank this week handed Windsor and London failing grades in fiscal transparency.

But a senior Windsor bureaucrat says the new report holds little weight, given she feels the methodology and criteria are flawed.

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A report from the C.D. Howe Institute — a not-for-profit Canadian research organization — gave both Southwestern Ontario cities an F in its annual fiscal transparency report released Thursday.

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Entitled The Municipal Money Mystery: Fiscal Accountability in Canada’s Cities, 2023, the report grades the fiscal transparency of 32 major Canadian municipalities. It measures transparency of a city’s financial documents by looking at how quickly budgets are approved, how accessible the numbers are, and how easy it is to compare spending to the budget, among other things.

Windsor, London, and Hamilton were the only municipalities to receive an F.

Janice Guthrie, Windsor’s treasurer and chief financial officer, told the Star the city does not consider the report a fair reflection of Windsor’s fiscal transparency.

“We feel that it is flawed on many levels,” Guthrie said of the report.

“It looks at municipalities through a public reporting lens, a corporate shareholder lens, as opposed to a municipal lens — we don’t report to shareholders or a board. We report to our residents and our taxpayers.

“We are, quite frankly, a municipality that wants to provide our residents with the information they need when they need it.”

Topping the scorecard with an “A” grade were Richmond, B.C. and Quebec City.

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By way of explaining Windsor’s grade, the report says the city did not approve its budget until March, “and its external auditor did not sign its financial statements until September.” Windsor’s budget, it said, “contained no PSAS (public sector accounting standards) reconciliation, and its financial statements contained restated budget numbers and did not explain variances.”

Guthrie called the report’s approach “limited,” and said its predefined criteria “does not give regard to provincial legislation and regulations.”

One of the criteria for scoring related to when Windsor adopted its budget. Guthrie noted that 2022 was an election year, and elected officials took office in November.

Following an election, “to have a budget, according to (the C.D. Howe Institute’s) standard, approved and passed in December, is irresponsible and unachievable,” Guthrie said.

“We took the time to have open and transparent budget operating review meetings where we walked them (councillors) through the budget documents, which are very complex. They were open public meetings.

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“We were downgraded (in the report) because we took that additional step to be more open, accountable, and transparent.”

According to the C.D. Howe Institute report, “Timely, reliable and transparent financial reports alone cannot ensure that municipal governments will serve their citizens’ interests.” However, the report said, “they are an essential foundation for citizens and legislators to understand and act on problems the numbers may reveal.”

Windsor has received C grades since 2020.

As for London, the report said the city’s “budget and financial statements were not timely, and its budget contained an incomplete reconciliation which did not provide PSAS consistent revenue, expense or surplus.”

In 2020, London received an F, in 2021 a B-, and in 2022 a C-.

In Windsor, Guthrie said the city’s bond rating has held steady at AA+ with a positive outlook.

“If you look at any of the economic forecasts for the City of Windsor, we are diversifying, we are growing, we are the place to be. That’s because we do have, according to Standards and Poor (credit rating agency), our financial house in order.”

The C.D. Howe Institute report, Guthrie said, “measures presentation and timing.”

“It does not measure quality, which is why we do not place a lot of emphasis on this grade, as opposed to our official bond rating.”

Guthrie said the City of Windsor will not “disregard” the recent report, and will look for opportunities to make improvements “on the basis of time and resources well spent, as opposed to just trying to get a better grade for the sake of a better grade.”

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