Item - 2015.AU4.3

City Council on November 3 and 4, 2015, adopted the following:

1.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to develop a process and criteria to review and identify significantly under-valued Payment in Lieu of Tax properties and initiate applications for review when warranted.

2.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to develop a process and criteria to identify where Payment in Lieu of Tax amounts paid by the government agencies are significantly less than requested amounts, and take steps to invoke the review process when warranted.

3.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to report annually to Council on Payments in Lieu of Tax amounts which remain unpaid, such report should include agency name, assessment values, number of years outstanding and amounts received, and action taken to address Payment in Lieu of Tax disputes.

4.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to develop a process and criteria to identify where Payment in Lieu of Tax payments may be deemed unreasonably delayed and request supplementary payments where warranted.

5.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to automate the process for identifying, analyzing and managing the assessment review process.  At a minimum, automation should include identification of potential properties for appeal: 

a.  based on Sales and Current Value Assessment comparisons; and

b.  low Current Value Assessment compared to previous year.

Consideration should be given to potential benefits of leveraging a case management system such as Integrated Business Management System to track properties under review.

6.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to review all properties identified during the audit for potential appeal.

7.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to coordinate with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation on the potential for electronically sharing data, including the status of Municipal Property Assessment Corporation inspections and related assessments on closed building permits between the City and Municipal Property Assessment Corporation.

8.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to evaluate the potential for reviewing similar non-residential properties in close proximity to recently sold properties which have been appealed by the City.

9.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to develop a process to periodically review tax exempt properties to determine the appropriate tax status of such properties.

10.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to follow-up with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation on the status of the properties identified during the audit.  Those properties deemed taxable should be corrected and billed accordingly.

11.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to evaluate the feasibility of reviewing high value under-assessed residential properties and request Municipal Property Assessment Corporation to review and update for the next roll return when appropriate.

12.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to develop additional review criteria and a process to ensure Municipal Property Assessment Corporation provided data is adequately reviewed and validated.  At a minimum, the process should include:

a.  review of declining assessment values beyond a certain percentage when compared to the previous year;

b.  developing exception reports to review and reconcile missing roll numbers or roll number changes from one year to the next; and

c.  develop a reporting process with Municipal Property Assessment Corporation where data provided by Municipal Property Assessment Corporation include the rationale for changes to property assessment values and property class.

13.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to coordinate with Canada Post to evaluate efforts to increase the number of ePost subscribers.  Alternatively, the feasibility of introducing other methods of electronic bill delivery should be evaluated.

14.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to develop and implement a formal access control and review process.  A review of user access should occur periodically and unauthorized users removed from authorized user lists.

15.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to investigate the feasibility of eliminating the use of generic user IDs and passwords.  Each user should be provided a unique user ID and password.

16.  City Council request the Director, Revenue Services to report to the April 4, 2016 meeting of the Government Management Committee on the status of the implementation of the Audit Committee recommendations.