12 / 44
12 | Citizens Report 2017
Your City holds over 100 public
meetings annually where Council
members debate and vote on over
500 motions after reviewing close to
10,000 pages of reports. The Clerk’s
Department makes sure that the
community has access to public
meeting agendas, reports and minutes
in a timely manner.
The
Finance
Department
is
responsible for accounting, financial
planning and revenue & collections.
The centre portion of this document,
pages 17 to 28, provides summary
financial information, population
& demographics and property tax
information. In 2017, as part of the
Open Government Portal new tools
were created to engage citizens and
to increase accessibility, transparency
and accountability.
A chart titled ‘Property Tax Levied
CORPORATE & FINANCIAL SERVICES
This division consists of five departments: Clerk’s, Finance, Information Technology, Fire and the civilian
side of the RCMP. You will find information on the Maple Ridge Fire Department on page 15 and a
summary of the RCMP’s work on page 16.
(Collected) by Type’ allows citizens
to see where the City’s revenue
comes from. The ‘Capital Planning
Budget Summary’ table provides a
breakdown by department and by year
to provide citizens with more detailed
information on work that is budgeted
in the current financial plan.
“The Open Government Portal
allows us to present information
for citizens in a manner that suits
them. The City has always been a
leader in exceeding the standards
laid out by the Government Finance
Officers Association (GFOA), so this
information was amongst the first
data we prepared for the launch of the
portal,” said Christina Crabtree, Chief
Information Officer.
The City’s computer, data and digital
communications are managed by the
Information Technology department.
They maintain the tech infrastructure
of five sites, an internal fibre optic
network, close to two million emails
a year, including the filtering of over
100 million spam emails. This team
was kept very busy in 2017. These
computer systems track all customer
interactions, allow for the monitoring
and operation of the City’s water and
sewer systems and ensure that staff
has computer access to carry out their
daily work.
The Corporate & Financial Services
team is at the forefront of delivering
on Council’s vision and values around
transparency and accountability. The
addition of the Open Government
Portal in 2017 demonstrates the City’s
commitment to ensuring our citizens
have the information they require to
understand their City’s operation and
financial health.