A steady approach to levels of service in Flagstaff County

Background

The rural municipality of Flagstaff County in east/central Alberta is home to around 3,600 people across a few small towns and villages, along with two hamlets that came on board in 2016. With help from a Municipal Asset Management Program (MAMP) grant, the county is progressing on its asset management journey, having:

• Developed an asset management policy and roadmap to identify next steps
• Conducted a strategic risk assessment
• Identified levels of service and conducted condition assessments for roads, water and sanitation services

From 2017 to 2024, MAMP funded 148 asset management grants for municipal projects across Alberta and provided training and education through MAMP-funded partners to more than 215 municipalities in the province. 

Highlights

• Compiling current levels of service information in one place was a good starting point for this rural municipality
• Identifying and addressing gaps in geographic information system (GIS) data made setting levels of service easier 
• A strategic risk assessment identified issues that were impacting service delivery and decision-making
• Connecting with another county led to sharing an app to assess gravel road conditions

The challenge

Flagstaff County took a methodical approach to setting levels of service by starting with its three main asset classes: roads, water and sanitation services. Roads in particular are crucial in this rural municipality that has no buses or taxis and relies on arterial roads for vital services such as moving grain to elevators. To effectively plan for the future, Flagstaff County knew it needed to start with a comprehensive understanding of what assets existed across the county, what condition they were in and what was required to maintain them. 

“We’re taking a more systematic approach to service delivery across the municipality. Assessing our service levels helps connect program costs and operational activities to performance, making it easier for council to evaluate the trade-offs between services and costs when making decisions.”
~ Debra Brodie, Corporate Services Director, Flagstaff County

The approach
 
Resources and training

Staff used the Alberta asset management handbook and toolkit along with in-person and online training resources from the Government Finance Officers Association of Alberta and MAMP case studies, among others, with the aim of discovering what similar-sized and similar-resourced communities were doing. They also held a workshop to determine future needs and self-assessed using MAMP’s Asset Management Readiness Scale (AMRS). 

Staff and council buy-in

A consultant helped with planning and bringing together an internal asset management committee to help coordinate the work. Council proved to be very keen, especially after learning that Flagstaff County was at pre-level 1 on the AMRS; the province had legislated an asset management approach, so it had to be done; and having robust data about municipal assets would enable better planning and decision-making. 

Staff from different departments were included from the beginning, and many discussions were held to explore concerns about how asset management might affect their responsibilities. This helped everyone understand the intent of the work and see the bigger picture.

Risk assessment

Staff undertook a strategic risk assessment to identify issues that were impacting the county's ability to deliver services and make decisions. Through this process, they identified a set of priorities and risk mitigation strategies to be used to assess the county’s progress in integrating the levels of service and risk assessment into decision-making and the annual budget process.

Current and target levels of service 

To identify current levels of service, the county took an inventory of its policies, standards and maintenance programs for each service area, and compiled all information related to service levels into a concise format. Performance was evaluated based on staff knowledge, council input and data from the county’s complaint management system. Staff proposed performance targets based on provincial and federal regulations, codes of practice, standards and guidelines, and these were then confirmed by council. As an example, the county’s Road Classification and Level of Service policy categorizes the road network system by road classifications (e.g., arterial, collector, local, undeveloped) using specific criteria, road specifications and level of service to ensure roads are designed, operated and maintained based on service needs, type of use and frequency of use.

While the county did not conduct a new public survey for its levels of service work, staff and council input was sought to identify the attributes of each service that mattered to residents. Information from previous public surveys was also used. 

Barriers

Early on, Flagstaff County realized it had inaccuracies in its GIS data stemming from how the data were captured and stored. For example, it had multiple data sets for water, which occurred when the hamlets were incorporated into the county. This impacted the accuracy of its levels of service work. 

Time and capacity were additional barriers. It took time to build staff understanding and develop the policy, as well as to define the levels of service and conduct the risk assessment, especially in the face of competing priorities. Covid was also a factor, as staff couldn’t meet in person and those working from home often had network issues. 

While some of Flagstaff County’s policies alluded to expected levels of service, it was necessary to evaluate whether its policies and practices were in sync and make adjustments if needed.

The results

With training, input from the consultant, ongoing discussion and seeing the results in action, staff and council have a better understanding of how asset management can enhance the quality of municipal services. Council has endorsed the asset management policy and allocated a budget to implement the roadmap. The county has also moved up on the AMRS in both the Policy and governance and Planning and decision-making competencies.

Armed with its policy and maintenance program inventories and a process to address gaps and missing information, Flagstaff County revised its policies to match desired levels of service, creating a foundation to improve its data management practices and update its database. The county is now better positioned to monitor levels of service and feed information, such as risk and performance data, into maintenance and capital planning. It is also creating a process map to integrate risk and service level data into operational and capital budget cycles, and has developed an asset risk table that includes build/repair/replace information.

The county collaborated with nearby County of St. Paul to share experiences and solutions and has started using a condition assessment tool developed in St. Paul to systematically and affordably assess gravel road condition. 

Flagstaff County is also considering ways to build climate resilience, with drought being a key concern. The local Agricultural Service Board has a good conservation plan, and the county is looking at how to manage watersheds and is part of a shelterbelt program for trees, with the county paying half the cost and the customer paying the other half. 

Having up-to-date policies, defined levels of service and solid performance data gives staff more confidence that they’re doing what’s needed rather than what’s wanted when it comes to managing county assets. Although it was a long and at times slow process with many moving parts, Flagstaff County expects subsequent phases for other asset classes to be faster now that everyone knows the whys and wherefores. The recent hire of a full-time Asset Management/GIS Coordinator is expected to keep asset management front and centre. 

Lessons learned 

• Don’t give up. It seemed overwhelming at times, but with Council support and a good plan, Flagstaff County achieved its objectives. They found that as staff and council’s understanding of the benefits of asset management grew, so too did their willingness to allocate time to it. 
• Network. Flagstaff County found its collaboration with the County of St. Paul to be a valuable source of information and support. 
• Build good data. Having current information about what services it was providing, as well as what assets it had and their condition, made it easier for Flagstaff County to establish accurate and complete levels of service and conduct risk and condition assessments.

Next steps

Flagstaff County will follow its annual review cycle for its levels of service and risk assessments for roads, water and sanitation services, and for other asset classes as they are added. It established an annual review to ensure the work wasn’t done once and not looked at again. 

Related resources

CP012 Asset Management
PW016 Road Classification and Level of Service policy

Contact 

Debra Brodie, Corporate Services Director
Flagstaff County, AB
(780) 384-4109 | dbrodie@flagstaff.ab.ca