Month: May 2018

IMFG Director Enid Slack and Municipal Property Assessment Corporation’s Vice President of Legal, Policy and Compliance Rose McClean spoke about the challenges of creating tax programs in their presentation, “Tax Policy Considerations: What are the Issues?” at the 2018 Ontario Property Tax Summit Facing Ontario’s Challenges.

IMFG Fellow Dr. Zack Taylor analyzes the inclusion and implications of local government representatives in Minnesota’s Metropolitan Council in the article, “The Met Council: Before curing its makeup, understand its history.”

IMFG Visiting Researcher Zachary Spicer discusses the reasons behind the lack of public participation in London’s police board meetings in the article, “Interest still low in police board meetings despite move to city hall.”

IMFG Director Enid Slack participated in a panel discussion called, “What is a Fiscally Healthy City?” at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s 2018 International Conference on Municipal Fiscal Health in Detroit, Michigan. The panel explored the significance of municipal fiscal health and identified strategies to implement successful fiscal health programs in cities.

In the article, “Will anti-BRT slate emerge for London’s civic election?”, IMFG Fellow Dr. Zack Taylor looks at the tensions in the upcoming London municipal election between local politics and party allegiances in the city’s controversial bus rapid transit plan.

New paper from the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance offers a new approach for designing and implementing fiscal rules to guarantee sound public finances at the local level. Toronto, May 15, 2018 – The “golden rule” of public finance states that governments should borrow only to invest and not to fund current spending, and […]

IMFG Director Enid Slack facilitated the panel discussion called, “Working Together: Building the City-Region of the Future,” (presentation available online) at the University of Toronto event, Toronto: Towards a Smart and Inclusive City-Region, on May 15, 2018. This session spoke about the importance of collaboration and partnership in continuing the prosperity and adaptability of the […]

In the CBC Radio’s London Morning panel discussion on the upcoming Ontario provincial election, IMFG Fellow Dr. Zack Taylor looks at the rise of PC populism and the fall of Liberal support in southwestern Ontario.

The Globe and Mail article, “Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as young tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley?” discusses the first-ever academic study charting the reasons Canadian tech talent leave for U.S. employment by IMFG Visiting Researcher Zachary Spicer.

By using the experiences in developing countries, IMFG Senior Fellow Richard M. Bird and IMFG Author Roy Bahl’s new book  “Fiscal Decentralization and Local Finance in Developing Countries: Development from Below,” provides a unique approach blending the theory of fiscal decentralization with the practice of subnational government finance.