City of Surrey 2019 Annual Financial Report

CITY OF SURREY OVERVIEWS CITY MANAGER'S DEPARTMENT

The City Manager’s Department provides advice and recommendations to City Council related to policies and emerging issues. The department assists in guiding the work of the other City departments, thus ensuring a coordinated and balanced implementation of Council policy and programs.The City Manager’s office ensures that Council resolutions are addressed in a timely and fulsome manner and provides effective financial management by monitoring the annual budget and the Five-Year Financial Plan. The City Manager’s Department ensures that Council’s priorities and high-quality sustainable City services are delivered on a consistent basis to the City’s residents and businesses. Through the Strategic Initiatives & Corporate Reporting function the Department provides coordination of key initiatives that span across multiple departments, including the “Surrey Excels” strategic framework. Consistency and high standards of corporate reporting, including regular reports to Council as well as periodic repots on organizational performance, are key functions of this department. The City Manager’s Office worked closely with departments across the organization to deliver key accomplishments in 2019, including selected initiatives where the City Manager’s Office played a key role or coordinating role.

2 0 1 9 A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S

• Continued to Advance Phase 2 of the Transitional Housing plan by working with BC Housing and community partners to initiate construction of one modular supportive housing project, the development approval process for an additional two modular supportive housing projects, and the opening a new 42-bed shelter. • Continued working with partners including Surrey City Development Council, Federal and Provincial governments, Simon Fraser University, TransLink, the YMCA and others to establish Surrey City Centre as the second metropolitan centre in the region, with an emphasis on attracting office and employment uses to the City Centre. • Supported the initiation and/or update of land use plans along the Fraser Highway corridor in an expedited manner to timely support the Skytrain Extension project. • Initiated the necessary steps to successfully transition policing services in the City of Surrey from the RCMP to a new Surrey Police Department. • Worked with the Engineering and Planning & Development departments to implement process improvements to reduce permit processing times for single family building permits.

• Worked to obtain the City’s largest Federal government contribution of $76.6 million in response to the City’s Disaster Mitigation Assistance Fund application. • Worked with the CEO of Fraser Health and the Ministry of Health to advance plans to build a new hospital in Cloverdale. • Worked in collaboration with TransLink and Regional municipalities, to successfully transition to implement Surrey-Langley SkyTrain, including completion of a design, preliminary business case, two stages of public engagement and execution of Partnership Agreements. • Supported the negotiations of a Municipal Agreement with the Province of BC for the Pattullo Bridge Replacement project, including provisions for the new bridge to be designed to accommodate six-travel lanes in the future and for the project to delivery community benefits to the City in the form of road upgrades and multi-use pathway connections to the bridge. • Delivered a series of coordinated orientation sessions for the new Council on organizational structure, governance and legal aspects, Council procedures, budget processes and strategic planning priorities.

• Delivered a series of Strategic Sessions that provided Mayor & Council updates on a variety of initiatives underway. • Updated the Surrey Excels strategic framework to Mayor & Council’s priorities. • Increased FOI program capacity in order to increase transparency to citizens and ensure compliance with legislated deadlines. • Established a set of 8 core competencies – The Great 8 (effective communication, values relationships, service excellence, delivers results, leadership, supports and promotes change, critical thinking, and continuous learning) which is being used as the basis for staff recruitment, training and development, and promotion. • Oversaw the successful transition of senior leadership in the organization as a number of key senior management staff retired and were successfully replaced by new leadership from internal candidates.

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