Connecting with rural Ontario municipal partners at ROMA
Nicole McNeill, President and CAO, Alan Spacek, Board of Directors Chair, Carmelo Lipsi, VP and COO and other members of the MPAC team attended the  2020 Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Conference  this week to meet and share insights with more than 1,000   rural municipal partners from across the province.
Municipal Connect update
In the coming weeks, we will implement a new password reset function in Municipal Connect to add an additional layer of security. This change is intended to address cyber risk and protect our data, while helping to mitigate the risk of high-profile attacks within the municipal community.

MPAC continues to make updates to Municipal Connect, the primary source of assessment-related information for Ontario municipal staff. These changes support our ongoing commitment to enhancing your user experience and protecting Ontario property owners’ data. Most recently, we rolled out enhancements to the Municipal Sales Listings (MSL) that make temporary roll numbers attached to severances and consolidations more easily identifiable. We also moved from a bi-weekly to a monthly data refresh on the People Portal. This change streamlines our operations while continuing to meet stakeholders’ business needs.

Visit Municipal Connect to learn more about these updates and if you have questions, contact your MPAC Account Manager. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months.
Upcoming webinar: Update on the proposed changes to the 2020 Property Assessment Notice and AboutMyProperty™ 
Understanding the needs of customers is paramount to the evolution of MPAC’s products and services. Building on the 2016 Assessment Update customer experience, find out how the integration of customer research has shaped the proposed changes to the 2020 Property Assessment Notice and the online tool, AboutMyProperty™. 
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Time: 1 to 2 p.m.
In case you missed it:
Our January 8, we hosted a webinar about the extensive cyber security measures MPAC has taken to manage and protect its billions of data points. We shared our 10 best practice fundamentals for protecting your own municipality’s data and systems – all of which can be implemented at little to no cost. Watch the recording .
Adapting to change
Last month, an article about MPAC’s 20-year evolution by President and CAO Nicole McNeill appeared in the online Municipal World Journal . Read about the ways we’ve evolved in response to changes in property markets over the last 20 years to become a more accountable, transparent and customer-focused agency here .

You can also watch Nicole’s presentation at the 2019 Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference to learn more about our evolution.
MPAC featured on AMO podcast
At the end of last year MPAC’s Chief Operating Officer, Carmelo Lipsi, and Director of Municipal and Stakeholder Relations, Chris Rickett, joined Brian Rosborough on an episode of AMO ON Topic, a podcast produced by AMO. The group discussed the ways MPAC collaborates with and supports municipalities. Listen here .
Reports on new assessment
In 2019, we delivered more than $37 billion in new assessments to municipalities across Ontario. New assessment is new construction and/or additions to existing property that have not been assessed by MPAC. Next week, municipal staff will have access to the following reports via  Municipal Connect :

New assessment report – year-end
  • Consolidates each quarterly new assessment forecast against what was processed in 2019, to provide an overall snapshot of new assessment activity in your municipality.
Processing of supplementary and omitted assessments
  • Measures whether we met our commitment to process at least 85% of total supplementary and omitted assessed changes within one year of occupancy.
Updated 2020 new assessment forecast report
  • Update to the preliminary new assessment forecast report that was shared with you in October 2019 to reflect additional information available (such as M-plan numbers).
Across Ontario, local building departments and MPAC staff are working together to improve the processes we use to receive and track building permits. A great example of this work comes from the Township of Armour, who shared the benefits they’ve seen from having MPAC’s staff working closely with them to process old outstanding permits, which has allowed them to clear out their system and ensure timely status updates.  

“The staff at MPAC are always there to answer any questions we have in regards to our outstanding building permits, inspections, as well as our supplemental and omitted assessments,” says Alison McGregor, Deputy Treasurer of the Township of Armour. “It is essential for us to have good communication with the staff at MPAC for our list to be kept clean, and to know that we are receiving the full assessment for our properties. From a finance perspective this is extremely beneficial, as cleaning our list over the past seven years has increased our assessment base by millions, and our major permits are receiving supplemental assessments much quicker.”

Do you have a great story about our partnerships in action? Share it with us .