2023 July

The Municipalities Act speaks to the role administrators have within their municipality.

It is important for every member of the municipal team to understand the administrator’s roles and responsibilities. The administrator is to advise council on their legislative responsibilities to make recommendations on matters of municipal operations and to implement council’s decisions.

Section 111 of The Municipalities Act outlines the duties to be performed by an administrator. Some of these duties include:

• Safekeeping of all books, documents and records;
• Recording of meeting minutes;
• Being in custody of the corporate seal;
• Maintaining the bylaw register;
• Sending all pertinent information to the minister;
• Implementing directions of council;
• Being responsible for all cash collections;
• Financial reporting; and
• Being responsible for all municipal employees (unless council directs otherwise).

These are a few examples of the obligations administrators have but there are many more. There are also certain duties entrusted to the administrator by other legislation, including The Tax Enforcement Act and The Local Government Elections Act, 2015. With the broad list of responsibilities, the administrator is expected to have a broad knowledge base. The position is constantly changing, requiring an administrator to be flexible and continually learning.

The administrator is the front-line individual that the public can ask about community issues. The administrator will often be able to resolve the issue and, if not, is responsible for relaying the information to council. It is important that the administrator remains neutral when providing the information either to council or to the public. Communication is key and should always be consistent.

The administrator is an employee of council and should always be professional. Council depends on the administrator’s expertise for all municipal related matters. They must provide research and recommendations based on discussions by council and make sure council has the most up-to-date information. The administrator must assist in the vision council has for the municipality.

Please visit saskatchewan.ca for more information on the various administrative roles and responsibilities. The site has calendars, sample bylaws, and guides which can be easily found through the search function.

Your municipal government’s fire insurance grading system data may be out of date. Learn more about the Fire Underwriters Survey (FUS) and use their simple municipal portal to update your data.

One of the insurance industry’s most important tools against the peril of fire is the Canadian fire insurance grading system. This system includes the Public Fire Protection Classification (PFPC) program and the FUS Dwelling Protection Grading System.

FUS was created in 1883 and is intended to assist municipal governments with best practices for community fire protection. The FUS team works with municipal officials to ensure that the fire insurance grades provide municipal governments and the insurance industry with clarity on fire protection.

Saskatchewan’s FUS data needs to be updated. The vast majority of municipal governments either do not have data or their data is five years old -- likely older! This means that many properties may be paying incorrect premiums -- either too high or too low for the risk they face.

The Insurance Brokers Association of Saskatchewan (IBAS) is working with FUS to support Saskatchewan municipal governments in updating your FUS data. The FUS online portal is simple, and inputting data from scratch will likely take most municipal governments two hours or less. Regular updates to that data – say every two years – will likely take 30 minutes or less for most municipal governments.

This summer, IBAS is hosting free webinars to introduce FUS to Saskatchewan’s municipal governments, walking you through the online portal and explaining how to enter your data. We recommend that your administrator and fire chief attend, if possible. These webinars will be held via Zoom from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. on:

• Thursday, August 10; and
• Thursday, August 17.

To register, please visit the IBAS website.

If you would like more information about the FUS, please contact mark.cooper@ibas.ca.

The deadline for municipalities to submit a copy of their 2022 financial statement (with the audit report and management letter) to the Ministry of Government Relations was July 1, 2023. (Note: Cities have until September 1, 2023, to send a copy of their 2022 financial statement with the audit report and management letter.)

Municipalities that have not already submitted their financial statement should submit them as soon as possible. Failure to do so may affect eligibility to access funding under the Municipal Revenue Sharing program and the Canada Community-Building Fund, previously known as the federal Gas Tax Fund program.

Municipalities can pass an extension of time bylaw to extend the submission date by up to 90 days. However, this bylaw must be passed by July 31, 2023, and a copy sent to financialstatements@gov.sk.ca.

The 2023 mill rate return template was recently emailed to all municipalities and is available for download from Mill Rate Returns page.

Compliance with the Effective Tax Rate (ETR) legislation will be assessed through the mill rate return. The “ETR” tab was added to the mill rate return template and should be completed with the required information.

Municipalities must submit the mill rate return by August 15, 2023, using the template provided. If you have any questions, please email millrate@gov.sk.ca.

Municipalities that must submit a 2022 waterworks financial overview to the Ministry of Government Relations are required to do so by September 1, 2023.

This waterworks data is collected for assessing sustainability and improving transparency. Failure to submit the information may affect eligibility to access funding under the Municipal Revenue Sharing program.

To complete the submission, please use the questionnaire link that will be sent by email. If you have any questions, please email waterworks@gov.sk.ca or call either 306-787-8859 or 306-787-2655.

All local authorities in Saskatchewan are required to have a building bylaw under The Construction Codes Act. Any local authority that does not have a building bylaw by the date listed in The Building Code Regulations (the BC Regulations) will have the model building bylaw applied to them. Local authorities must administer and enforce the model building bylaw as though they had adopted it themselves.

The BC Regulations lists local authorities defined under The Municipalities Act as a town, village, resort village, rural municipality, municipal district or restructured municipality, to have their own building bylaw by December 31, 2023.

Local authorities preparing a building bylaw must submit two certified true copies within 60 days of council’s approval to the Building and Technical Standards Branch to receive ministerial approval. Bylaws cannot be submitted electronically or through email. Building bylaws are not valid until they receive ministerial approval, which can take up to 60 days.

Local authorities are encouraged to contact the branch before adopting, amending or repealing their building bylaw to ensure draft wording complies with legislative requirements.

If you have questions, please contact Building and Technical Standards Branch at 306-787-4113 or btstandards@gov.sk.ca.

Cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated in their phishing campaigns. They send phishing messages, which often look like they have come from a trusted sender, to trick people into sharing sensitive information.

To protect yourself from phishing:

• Trust, but verify.
  If you know the sender of a message you think is suspicious, phone them to confirm that they really sent it.
• Be cautious of unexpected emails.
  Think twice before you open attachments or click links in emails that urge you to respond immediately or play on your emotions like fear, curiosity or greed.
• Check first before giving out information.
  Never give out confidential or personal information without checking the source first.
• Check domain names.
  Phishing emails often use imitation domain names to catch you off-guard. For example, they might use www.example.co instead of the real domain of www.example.com.

For more information, visit getcybersafe.gc.ca.