The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday, April 1, edition that knowing a company's payout ratio is important because it will help you determine the safety of the dividend and its prospects for growth. The Globe's John Heinzl writes that many companies -- particularly those that make it a priority to pay an attractive dividend that grows over time -- discuss the payout ratio in earnings releases or elsewhere on their website because they know shareholders are looking for this information. A good example is the utility operator Fortis ($44.07). If you go to the company's main investor relations web page, you will see a chart titled "dividend information" that shows annual dividends paid since 2006, along with the payout ratio for each year. A note beneath the chart indicates the payout ratio is "adjusted for non-recurring items" -- in other words, it is the annual dividend expressed as a percentage of earnings per share after stripping out one-time factors. Fortis's payout ratio was 66 per cent in both 2015 and 2016, which is reasonable for a utility company with largely regulated and relatively predictable earnings.