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

Background

Conception Bay South is a town of over 27,000 people located near St. John’s on Newfoundland and Labrador’s Avalon Peninsula. In 2021, it received a Municipal Asset Management Program (MAMP) grant to establish an asset management committee and policy, acquire and populate asset management software, and set levels of service and conduct condition assessments for 240 kilometres of roads and close to 70 parks and recreation facilities. It was also able to include 36 sewage lift stations.

From April 2016 to October 2024, MAMP funded 133 asset management grants for municipal projects across Newfoundland and Labrador and provided training and education through MAMP-funded partners to more than 229 municipalities in the province. 

Highlights

• Motivated staff helped drive initial efforts
• E-learning courses and customized workshops and templates built understanding and buy-in, and fostered group ownership
• Common definitions for "adequate” level of service created shared understanding and expectations
• Climate change considerations are being incorporated into infrastructure planning and upgrades
• A dedicated asset management student and mandatory training for new staff helped maintain focus and progress

The challenge

The town was built with a piecemeal approach over hundreds of years, and there was little information about infrastructure installed before the town was incorporated in 1973. The Senior Capital Asset Accountant position was created in 2014, asset management was more of a buzzword than a reality, and the asset management activities that were taking place were not necessarily defined or documented as such. As the town grew, it started looking for a more structured approach to planning and decision-making.

The approach

After 2014, asset management quickly became a collaborative effort between council, the asset management committee and staff. The committee had many roles, including spreading awareness, sharing information across departments and streamlining asset management to avoid duplication and ensure everyone benefitted from each department’s work. 

The town began with roads, parks and lift stations. Motivated recreation staff, who were interested in how asset management could contribute to maintaining recreation facilities, made parks and recreation facilities a natural inclusion. Roads were included as they are a crucial municipal asset for residents and the most expensive to maintain. Since the town already had preliminary water and sewer data, the cost to include lift stations was not excessive. 

Training was critical. The asset management committee took the Canadian Network of Asset Managers’ eLearning courses. Subsequently, staff and council participated in a customized, in-person workshop from the Atlantic Infrastructure Management (AIM) Network, which they described as “very successful, informative and engaging,” and a turning point in their efforts. Because the sessions focused specifically on Conception Bay South, they were instrumental in building acceptance and buy-in. With the facilitator, workshop participants also customized the AIM Network’s levels of service template to meet the needs of Conception Bay South, taking the guesswork out of deciding where to start. 

Early on, the town hired a university student for the summer who was dedicated to asset management. He sat on the committee and provided consistent communication to staff to keep asset management front of mind. One of his main responsibilities was to consolidate asset inventory lists from each department and create a master list. When a master list for one category of assets was done, the committee would start working on levels of service for that category, using the AIM Network’s level of service template, internal policies, and results from annual public surveys. Council and senior management also provided input, stimulating discussion and a sense of ownership among the team, which in turn helped drive interest and commitment.

Conception Bay South consulted with the community to ensure their viewpoints were incorporated into its levels of service work. It also facilitates an annual public survey to collect information on how residents would prefer to spend the variable budget. The survey includes questions about what levels of service are satisfactory to residents, and these results will be used to inform ongoing discussions about levels of service. 

Barriers

Asset management implementation can often present challenges, and conjure concerns related to the limited capacity of resources such as funds and staff availability. Conception Bay South was able to alleviate such concerns through open communication, discussion and training. Staff, senior management and council started to understand the benefits of making data-driven decisions that could be supported by analytical figures, even in the face of having to learn new concepts and terminologies and change established processes. 

Discussions among staff and council during the workshops and afterward revealed that “adequate” level of service meant different things to different people, making it hard to determine which level of service was being met. This realization highlighted the need for defined and documented definitions. 

The results

The town developed an asset management policy; created an asset management committee with cross-team representation; acquired and began to populate its asset management decision support tool; and set levels of service for its roads, parks and lift stations. 

Staff and council now see the town’s asset management processes as important communication channels to obtain information for decision-making and planning, and to report asset conditions and financial needs. Council and senior management are eager to review asset management reports and see the potential for cost savings. However, some decisions must still be made based on available funding rather than following the asset management plan to the letter. 

New staff are expected to take asset management training, to build a common understanding and highlight asset management as a priority. Although there has been some turnover since the beginning of the project, one of the original parks and recreation champions continues to be involved, sitting on the committee and motivating other staff by ensuring asset management is an integral part of discussions and decision making. 

“When it comes to asset management, there’s strength in numbers. We keep the momentum going by encouraging new staff to become involved and using our champions to boost interest internally and throughout the municipality.”
~ Suzanne Grouchy, Senior Capital Asset Accountant

Staff have started incorporating asset management tasks into their day-to-day routines. For instance, the town’s Geographic Information System (GIS) Technician developed a process to log condition assessments for various assets, whereby field workers doing regular maintenance can complete an online condition assessment on a mobile device. The information is automatically uploaded to the GIS system that is linked to the town’s asset management software.

Conception Bay South is also beginning to integrate climate considerations into its planning. Being on the coast, it experiences ongoing losses from storm surges that damage roads and breakwaters. The engineering department and external consultants are looking at new designs and methodologies for construction specifications for infrastructure upgrades that can better withstand climate change. 

Lessons learned

• Involve council and senior management early, and ideally right from the start. Although Conception Bay South was lucky enough to have built-in champions, work was still needed to get everyone on board, and the town now views that time and effort as well worth it in the end. 
• Take advantage of outside resources. For Conception Bay South, participation in the AIM Network workshop and using the customized template was invaluable in laying out the rationale for and kick-starting the levels of service work. 
• Keep the momentum going. Conception Bay South found that enthusiasm dwindled at times as other priorities arose, highlighting the need for consistent focus and ongoing monitoring. Focusing on the net benefits has been helpful in this regard.

Next steps

Conception Bay South is now looking to set levels of service for water, sewers and buildings, and will expand its assessment and reporting schedules to monitor the extent to which its agreed-upon levels of service are being met. 

It also plans to start sending managers monthly condition reports to inspire discussion and maintain momentum. 

Related resources

• Canadian Network of Asset Managers eLearning courses 
• Atlantic Infrastructure Management Network level of service workshop 

Contact

Suzanne Grouchy, CPA
Senior Capital Asset Accountant
Conception Bay South, NL
(709) 834-6500 ext. 209