2025 Budget - Information Services

Highlights

The 2025 Information Technology budget is impacted by a number of decisions that are outside of Information Technology (IT) staff's control. These decisions include the move of the Peterborough Utilities Commission (PUC) and Information Technology staff to the City including all associated technology costs; the Peterborough Utilities Inc decision to end the share IT service with the City, the decision to dissolve the Peterborough and Kawartha's Economic Development Corporation and the continuation of Peterborough Police to transition to their own IT department. The IT costs associated with the move of the PUC to the City are offset by the PUC revenues that are also being transferred to the City.

There continues to be a shift that has resulted in software companies offering their applications as a hosted solution or Software as a Service. This is resulting in a shift from purchasing licenses that are a capital cost to annual subscription fees. Examples include, ERP, the Memorial Centre ticketing system, Recreation and Facility booking system and Office 365.

IT costs are charged to City Departments if an activity either receives a fee for the service they provide (i.e. the Building Division receiving fees for building permits), or if there is funding provided by an external organization that is related to the cost of providing services (i.e. Social Services receives funding from the Province).

IT Security continues to be an area of focus as security threats become more advanced and sophisticated. Additional investment is required for security, advanced monitoring, and detection tools. Investments in technology continue to increase as departments leverage technology to improve efficiencies. This can be in the form of additional hardware such as mobile devices, servers and applications, all of which require IT support.

The Information Technology Division has requested new staff positions not included in the budget. These requests can be found in Section 4 Staffing Requests not included in the Draft 2025 Budget.

Interactive Budget

Explore the City's budget using the interactive OpenBook feature, including expenses by department and division as well as a breakdown of what a typical residential property taxpayer pays per $100,000 of assessment.

• Expenses page - Information Services in OpenBook

The full budget information is available in the Draft 2025 Budget book.