Reports & Positions

Municipal Reporting Burden

Local governments in Ontario are straining under a range of reporting requirements. Reporting to the province is both important and necessary. It helps the province ensure accountability, monitor performance of funded programs, and ensure that transferred money is being spent appropriately. However, over time municipal reporting has become unwieldy. New regulations, funding agreements and programs have made municipal-provincial relations more complex. As new requirements were added, too few were taken away. Steadily municipalities became over regulated and deeply burdened with requirements to report to the province on hundreds of programs and services.

RESOURCES

Bearing the Burden: An Overview of Municipal Reporting to the Province (Summary Report)

Far from achieving the goals of good governance and accountability, municipal-provincial reporting in Ontario now hinders the ability of municipalities to function like responsible orders of government. This report provides a summary of AMCTO's research on the municipal reporting burden.

Bearing the Burden: An Overview of Municipal Reporting to the Province (Technical Report)

Far from achieving the goals of good governance and accountability, municipal-provincial reporting in Ontario now hinders the ability of municipalities to function like responsible orders of government. This report provides a complete overview of AMCTO's research on the municipal reporting burden.

Municipal-Provincial Reporting Inventory

We have assembled a list of reports that the province collects. Based on our research, we estimate that the province collects at least 422 reports from municipalities every year (225 separate reports collected monthly, quarterly biannually, and annually).