Like private sector corporations, municipalities have a vested interest in assessing their financial and operational performance. After all, like the shareholders in a company, the residents and elected officials of a municipality - all of whom pay and the latter of whom set municipal taxes - have a vested interest in knowing just how efficient or inefficient their municipality’s operations really are, and just how healthy or unhealthy their municipality’s fiscal situation really is.
Assessing this performance, however, requires both introspection and extrospection. It requires evaluating the fiscal and operational performance of one’s own municipality and then comparing that performance to the fiscal and operational performances of peer or competitor municipalities.
For this reason, in 2019 the Town of Coaldale decided to take its financial and operational reporting to the next level and applied the well-known business concept of “benchmarking” to municipal government. Rather than simply assess its own financial and operational performance (an exercise that, in accordance with Sections 276 and 648.4 of the Municipal Government Act, municipalities must perform on an annual basis), the Town went one step further and began comparing its financial and operational performance to the financial and operational performances of a number of peer/competitor municipalities across Alberta.
Now dubbed the Town of Coaldale "Comparative Analysis", this document stands alongside the Town’s Operating and Capital Budgets, Audited Financial Statements, and Annual Reports as one more tool for analyzing the efficacy of Coaldale's operations and service delivery. In so doing, it not only provides Town residents and business owners - both current and prospective - with a better sense of how Coaldale is being run, but also, elected officials with a better understanding of how to make Coaldale a more competitive and attractive place to live and raise a family, moving forward.
How does Coaldale stack up against its peer/competitor municipalities? Please click the link below to view the Town of Coaldale's 2024 Comparative Analysis.