The City drives change in the way it delivers services and is constantly looking at ways to make tax dollars go further. The City continually works to find efficiencies and build innovation into the way it does business. All City departments conduct line-by-line reviews of their budgets each year and have embraced a culture of innovation to find savings wherever possible.
Did you know?
Ontario municipalities receive only 9 cents of every tax dollar raised in Ontario, while the Provincial and Federal governments receive 44 cents and 47 cents respectively. In contrast to this, municipalities own 57% of the capital infrastructure, while the Provincial Government owns 41% of Infrastructure and the Federal Government only 2%.
Barrie taxes are very comparable to other municipalities. In fact, they are in the lower end of other major southern Ontario cities. In 2023, S&P maintained the City of Barrie’s ‘AA+’ credit rating.
The below projects and initiatives highlight cost saving measures from across the City. In instances where staff time is saved, this time is 100% reinvested, giving staff more time to complete other work.
Service Improvements
Pingstreet was the City of Barrie’s official app. The City was formally notified by the vendor in February 2022 that Pingstreet would not receive any further updates. Barrie’s Marketing & Communications and IT departments worked extremely efficiently and under tight timelines to source, procure, research, design, develop, test, and launch the City’s new app. From Council approval to product launch, the project was completed in just three months (March to May 2022).
- Added 125 services/information pages compared to old app
- $75,000 cost avoidance per year by doing work in-house instead of paying previous vendor
- Est. 1 hour saved per user by having more notification options instead of having to search for the information
- 790+ direct reports through the app from May 2022 launch to March 2023
- 12,800+ app downloads from May 2022 launch to March 2023
- Both departments awarded with a Gold MarCom Award in the Digital Media – Mobile App/Web category for the new app
Strategic priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Information Technology, Marketing & Communications
Collaborating department: Service BarrieImage
Replaced two natural gas ice resurfacing units with the City’s first electric ones which are easier to maintain and reduce greenhouse emissions.
- ~1,820 hours saved per year with reduced maintenance
- 9 staff trained on operation of new units
- $12,000 cost avoidance (reduced annual maintenance costs)
- Eliminates 38 tonnes of emissions annually and 80% energy savings compared to natural gas units
Lead: Recreation & Culture
Collaborating department: Corporate Asset ManagementThe concentration of primary sludge at the Wastewater Treatment Facility has historically been below typically accepted values. Evaluating and optimizing the primary clarification process improved the quality of the sludge, therefore reducing the volume generation and reducing disposal costs.
- $315,000 annual savings in biosolids disposal costs beginning in 2022
- Approximately 75 tonnes of CO2 equivalent eliminated per year due to reduced volume to haul for disposal
- 25% reduction in primary sludge volume generation
- 20% reduction in biosolids volume generation
Strategic priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: InfrastructureAPLI updates include the digitization of three new development processes, enhanced building permit applications including automatic notifications, new and improved reporting functionality and self-serve invoicing, and digitization of additional development processes in existing development record types.
- $350,000 configuration cost to City avoided as it was covered by Provincial funding
- 100 staff hours saved annually for reinvestment
- Improved communication with applicants
- Improved customer experience
Strategic priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Business Performance & Internal Audit
Collaborating departments: IT, Finance, Development ServicesInfrastructure staff collaborated to replace the existing temporary alum delivery system that was installed in 2015 and had limitations due to its temporary nature. It did not allow for discrete alum dosage adjustments to each secondary clarifier or automatic diurnal flow adjustments. This project allowed for enhanced control and optimization of alum dosage at the facility, significantly improving the alum distribution system at the Wastewater Treatment Facility, improving the final effluent quantity and enhancing the ability to respond and react to process challenges and high flow events.
- 12% reduction in alum consumption
- Approximately 9 tonnes of CO2 equivalent eliminated per year with 22 less transport trucks per year required to deliver alum
- $100,000 chemical cost savings in 2022
- $150,000 annual chemical cost savings for 2023 and beyond
Strategic Priorities: Infrastructure Investments, Responsible Governance
Lead: InfrastructureDigitizing the Tree Removal and Preservation Permit process included other improvements such as eliminating multiple levels of approval, reducing sign errors, and aiming to reduce incomplete applications. Permit information is now available to any staff with access to the software, instead of having to contact specific staff.
- 10 staff hours saved per year with improved record management and easier location of information and application status
- Eliminated 1 step requiring the Director to sign permits as they are already signed by a Landscape Architectural Planner
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Development Services
Collaborating department: OperationsA custom mobile app was created to allow parks staff to send updates to the Barrie.ca website to indicate the status of the soccer and baseball fields. This allows staff to send updates from the location/field, rather than having to return to the office to record an answering machine message. Citizens can now get field updates on Barrie.ca instead of calling to listen to the voicemail message.
- 92 staff hours saved per year
Strategic Priorities: Thriving Community, Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating Departments: Operations, Marketing & CommunicationsProperty owner permission is required if a tenant wants a backyard burn permit. Previously, that permission could be provided one time via email, handwritten note, text message exchange with the tenant, or by calling, which was a lot of back and forth between staff and the applicant. All these records were transferred to a binder for staff to search through each year to determine which were still valid. Now, a template is used to obtain owner permission for every permit/year, and staff spend less time searching for the previous permission on file.
- 20 hours of staff time saved per year (in search time and back & forth with applicants)
- Est. 50 hours saved for all customers (template reduces back & forth exchanges with property owner and staff)
- The owner authorization template is now included in the online application process, so it can be completed entirely online
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Barrie Fire & Emergency Service
Collaborating Department: Marketing & CommunicationsKidd’s Creek Marina restoration and sediment removal projects were going to happen at separate times, with overlapping scopes of work. Staff aligned these two projects into one, with a lower-maintenance finish and avoided additional costs. Improved scheduling eliminated the need to cancel 12 Marina slips for the 2023 season, reduced flooding risk and further lost revenue for the city. Part of the reason the restoration was required was the large amount of sediment build up. This has been removed, and staff have added access maintenance holes to facilitate future sediment removal from the culvert prior to it reaching the Marina.
- ~$100,000 cost avoidance by aligning the timing of two projects in the same area
- $36,000 revenue loss avoided as improved schedule no longer impacted any boat slip rentals
- $2,500 cost savings per year with new natural area having lower maintenance costs
- 5,000 cubic meters of sediment (500 dump trucks worth) removed from the culvert, channel, and marina
Strategic Priorities: Thriving Community, Infrastructure Investments, Responsible Governance
Lead: Infrastructure
Collaborating Departments: Development Services, Facilities, Operations
Internal Process Improvements
Improved tracking for Smartpoint meter warranty values increases information available to staff to help better manage the assets.
- ~$56,000 cost avoidance per year, knowing how much a warranty replacement should cost at any time
- This process provides clarity on how the City manages $7.2 million worth of assets
Lead: Infrastructure (Water Operations)
Collaborating department: FinanceFreedom of Information requests often involve overlapping searches between Waste Management & Environmental Sustainability and Operations. A review of the search process for a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt project has eliminated the overlap and duplication.
- Approximately 1 hour saved per FOI request involving Waste Management & Environmental Sustainability and Operations
- Cost savings to requestors due to eliminated charges for duplicated search time (costs vary greatly based on overall search time, materials found and copied)
Strategic priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Waste Management & Environmental Sustainability
Collaborating departments: Operations, Legislative & Court ServicesAs part of the Learning and Organizational Development Strategy, a web-based learning system is now being utilized to offer and/or track all training offered to staff. Through this, Human Resources staff have greatly improved administration capabilities, and staff have a consistent place to find and sign up for all training opportunities. Training was previously offered over multiple platforms and more time consuming to manage. Instead of purchasing a new software to manage all courses, staff were able to expand and fully utilize an existing subscription.
- 387 staff hours saved per year
- $33,000 annual cost savings beginning in 2024 by eliminating one of the previous training platforms
- $100,000 cost avoidance by utilizing existing software instead of purchasing new
- 80+ courses/training offered per year
- 200+ employees engaging in training offered
- 4 steps eliminated per employee training registration
Strategic priorities: Thriving Community, Responsible Governance
Lead: Human Resources
Collaborating department: ITWhile transferring existing courses to the new Learning Management System, some would not transfer and function properly. The Learning Management System company (Bridge) could have fixed the compatibility issues but would have required payment of $5,000 to do so. Utilizing free trials, City staff were able to fix the compatibility issues so the courses could be successfully used in the Learning Management System.
- $5,000 cost savings by completing work internally
Strategic priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Business Performance & Internal Audit
Collaborating department: Human ResourcesStaff created one post card to promote two programs: the “I Love Barrie” contest and the RecACCESS program. These would typically have been marketed separately, but putting one promotion on each side of the post card saves staff time creating marketing tactics, and saves costs for paper and printing, all while generating awareness for both initiatives at the same time to the same target audience.
- 3 staff hours saved by utilizing the same marketing tactics instead of creating new
- $300 cost avoidance by printing in-house in our print shop instead of an external print vendor
- $300 cost savings by printing on both sides of the paper (one promotion on each side, saves 6,000 postcards)
Strategic Priorities: Thriving Community; Responsible Governance
Lead: Marketing & Communications
Collaborating department: Legislative & Court ServicesWith the redesigned barrie.ca and new content management system, there was an opportunity to pilot a revised approach to website content maintenance. Instead of developing training materials and administering training for “web content contributors” (old model) whose updates must then be audited and approved by Communications staff, IT and Marketing & Communications staff collaborated to support a centralized approach to website content management, where Digital Communications staff take a more proactive approach to content updates for the corporation.
- Est. 1150 staff hours saved per year by removing duplicate work and eliminating training that is no longer required
- Information is more relevant and up to date for the 2 million visits and 4.9 million pageviews per year (2021 figures)
- Est. 1900 hours saved for all website visitors in total with reduced need to search for up-to-date information
- 72% increase in number of content updates in Q1 2023 compared to Q1 2022
- Reduced average turnaround time for straightforward content updates from 2–3 business days to 20 minutes
- Eliminated >2 emails per web update request (Q1 2023 figures amounts to over 800 emails avoided)
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: Marketing & Communications
Collaborating department: ITPreviously manual operations such as giving employee access to certain systems and notifying administrative staff held up the onboarding process. For offboarding, manual checks were performed daily to see when system access needed to be terminated. Now, Human Resources indicating hire/rehire/retire/termination is the only manual task required in this process. The automation scans the system for employees that need to be onboarded/offboarded and then executes all access provisioning and email communication.
- Approx. 263 staff hours saved per year by automating manual operations and eliminating wait times for access
- Reduced 1,300 incident tickets to 5 (every activation/deactivation no longer requires a ticket, now exceptions only)
- Eliminated >10 process steps that are now completed automatically
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating department: Human ResourcesThis improvement reviewed all existing paper processes to determine what needed to be captured digitally. Staff can now complete, assign and close work activities digitally, and document their findings in the field in real time via a mobile application.
- 90 staff hours saved per year by entering information into the system while in the field instead of after the fact with office staff assistance
- 10 staff trained on the application
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating department: InfrastructurePrevious Building Department payroll processing involved re-entering hours from timesheets into a multi-page spreadsheet, which was time consuming and cumbersome. The process has been improved by adding total hours on one spreadsheet, eliminating duplicate entries.
- 208 staff hours saved
- Eliminated duplicate entries, a very labour-intensive step from department’s payroll entry process
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: BuildingA new Telecom Expense Management System (TEMS) pulls information from all major telecommunication carriers staff utilize, instead of having to access multiple portals (for each carrier) to maintain mobile data for the corporation. This provides easier access to up-to-date, accurate information and allows departments to monitor and manage their information more easily and reduces manual tracking and notifications.
- 364 staff hours saved per year (Service Desk Specialist staff no longer have to access multiple systems, reduced manual tracking and notifications)
- $6,228 in cost avoidance – better visibility with improved reporting allowed us to reduce city mobile phone contracts including lines and devices
- $228 saved by being able to see and eliminate lines with zero usage
- Over 500 staff have improved access to mobile device and usage information (IT, end users, managers)
- Eliminated 4+ process steps to allow staff to manage their mobile accounts and hardware
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: ITEvery year funds are allocated to renewal programs (watermain, road, sewer, sidewalk), and there was no easy way to ascertain if year-to-year programs would result in tearing up the road multiple times in a couple of years. Now, mapping annual programs helps staff quickly identify opportunities to combine projects along the same road.
- 35 hours of staff time saved (manual review)
- New visual representation of annual programs available to staff to assist in their yearly plans
Strategic Priorities: Infrastructure Investments, Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating Departments: Corporate Asset Management, InfrastructureUpdated and optimized Civil 3D templates allow for a much more efficient transfer of data and the collection of additional data into GIS. Updates include eliminating a risk for error, better instructions for staff, and updated software with inherent efficiencies
- 210 hours of staff time saved per year (faster transfer and collection of data)
- $121,000 cost to City avoided as it was covered by Provincial funding”
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating Departments: Corporate Asset Management, Development Services, InfrastructureVarious maps, dashboards, and other field capture tools have been consolidated into the Sanitary Progress Bundle web map. Once all the data was mapped it became immediately clear that improvements to the flushing program with coordination of CCTV should occur as to not flush the same areas twice. Bringing data sources for different systems into one view allows everyone involved, that could be affected by the information within it, to better plan and coordinate their activities related to Sanitary maintenance.
- 140 hours of staff time saved per year by allowing easier coordination of efforts so staff do not have to flush mains that will already be flushed during CCTV inspection
- Staff can check one source instead of 4 for Sanitary maintenance information
Strategic Priorities: Infrastructure Investments, Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating Departments: Corporate Asset Management, Infrastructure, OperationsThe Managed Detections and Response project provides a centralized log collector that will be vetted and catalogued, instead of reviewing logs in silos when there is a cyber security incident. This includes 24/7 alerts, after hours coverage, and built in automation to remediate common and frequent alerts, freeing up City staff time.
- 300 hours of staff time saved per year with automated remediation of most logs and review time
- Eliminated level 1 and 2 alerts review
- Enhances our cyber security posture
Strategic Priorities: Community Safety, Responsible Governance
Lead: ITWastewater field staff can now visually see their assigned/completed activities on a map and are able to quickly capture their sanitary flushing and maintenance hole inspection details in the field, when and where the work is taking place. Office staff can view the dashboard and assign work accordingly, and all staff can see when the work is completed. This replaces manually documenting completed streets on a manual map.
- 20 hours of staff time saved per year
- 8 staff trained on the field map application
Strategic Priorities: Infrastructure Investments, Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating Departments: Infrastructure, OperationsDigitized paper inspections, and work management tasks to record the work being done and the time spent doing the work. Eliminated paper copies of work completed thereby eliminating filing tasks and scanning of documents. Asset locations have been digitized at the Landfill so staff can see where their infrastructure is.
- 14 hours of staff time saved per year
- 600+ pieces of paper saved per year
- ~2 new opportunities for staff: able to digitally analyze inspection results and work completed through reporting; able to view the assets on a map
- Made inspections easier for staff
Strategic Priority: Responsible Governance
Lead: IT
Collaborating Department: Waste Management & Environmental Sustainability