CANMORE – The Town of Canmore has grown over the past 20 years, but the structure used at the administrative level of the municipality hasn’t adapted with those changes.
While some would characterize Canmore as a town and others a city due to its population, it lies between the two on the spectrum of municipal corporate structures and has reached the limits of what it can do according to a consultant hired this year to conduct an structural review of the organization.
But change isn’t cheap, with administration proposing in the 2019 operational budget $432,000 in new staff positions – including a brand new general manager of corporate services.
Nad Consulting owner Jean-Francois Nadeau presented the results of a comprehensive review of Canmore’s administrative structure to council at the beginning of November. He said the corporation is at a crossroads and there is a common thread connecting the issues identified in the analysis.
“We found a root cause or common threat among the issues,” Nadeau said. “That root cause is the Town has reached the limits of its current administrative model – i.e. a small town administration – (where a) small town administration relies on informal processes, flexible and generalist employees and management that can both manage and be directly involved in operations.
“We have reached the limit of that model and there is a need to scale that up to the next level.”
While Canmore has a resident population of 14,000 permanent citizens, it can grow to 25,000 including visitors. Nadeau said that makes the moniker of resort municipality more appropriate than town or city when considering the type of municipal structure to use.
He said the organizational review wants to take Canmore from managing issues to managing people; from serving individual residents to serving the community; from trying to give people what they want and make them happy to offering fair, respectful and transparent services with clear processes. Nadeau said the goal is to have an administration that has a clear, understood and demonstrated knowledge and approach with a sustainable workload with room built in for the “unexpected.”
“The objective is to scale up administration from a small town administration to a tourism based municipality administration,” he said. “We have made a number of recommendations to help the Town get there.”
The change required is organizational wide and complex, Nadeau said, and there is a need for a “business transformation” initiative to coordinate the change that needs to happen.
That means change that aligns people, process and technology initiatives more closely with the organizational strategy and vision.
“It is a coordinated and structured approach to making change in an organization, as opposed to implementing several separate projects without an overarching goal, purpose, or link to the organizational strategy,” he said.
A business transformation leader has been appointed, he said, and a series of specific recommendations made: including establishing a new general manager of corporate services, aligning IT with communications, and finding more efficient ways to provide citizens of the community services.
Meanwhile, council began considering its operational budget and administration’s proposed draft budget with the increased staffing at a Nov. 8 finance committee meeting. The total staffing changes proposed for the 2019 budget is $1.2 million and in 2020 $400,000.
Next year’s budget proposed several new or expanded positions including $155,000 for the general manager of corporate services and $144,000 for an IT manager. There was $89,000 for land use enforcement position in the planning department and $89,000 for a junior planner.
Currently Canmore has a part-time planning position that is also a part-time sustainability coordinator.
Given the work expected as part of the human wildlife coexistence task force, the recommendation is to make both positions full time for an additional $140,000.
Priority staff additions, including from the corporate review, total $815,000.
Of that, $110,000 is from changes to casual staffing models and $272,000 from changes to the fire department staffing model.
Currently, the municipality has 206.2 full time equivalent positions – 85 under the manager of municipal infrastructure and 96.2 under the manager of municipal services.
Chief Administrative Officer Lisa de Soto said the 2019 operational budget is proposed to have $19 million in salaries wages and benefits, which represents approximately 35 per cent of the entire budget.
The 2019 budget includes cost of living adjustments set at the consumer price index – or a total increase of $353,000. Performance based pay increases are proposed to cost $100,000, while human resources adjustments are considered to cost $191,000.
Canmore does budget to save money from unfilled positions or slippage and that accounts for a budgeted $262,000 savings next year.
“There are new resources needed,” de Soto said, pointing to the organizational structure review. “Those resources are needed to address capacity concerns.”
