Meeting future challenges: business planning in Grande Prairie, Alberta.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Author: Anderson, E.D.
• Date: 01 February 1997

The six-phase framework of its business plan enables the city to combine its strategic planning and budgeting processes.

How can a small city which has experienced boom and bust cycles in the past maintain economic stability in the tumultuous 1990s? How should such a city plan strategically to make itself ready for the 21st century? Will the city be able to maintain a successful debt reduction program while senior governments embark on debt reduction programs of their own, including reductions of grants to municipalities and downloading of responsibilities to local governments? These were questions of concern for the City of Grande Prairie, Alberta, in recent years.

Grande Prairie, a city of 31,000 residents, is a northern regional trading center situated 300 miles northwest of Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. The Grande Prairie region's diversified economy serves a population base of 175,000 in northwest Alberta and northeast British Columbia. Situated in a resource-rich area, the economy depends on oil and gas, forestry, and agriculture for its stability. Long-noted for its spirit of volunteerism, Grande Prairie hosted the Canada Games in the winter of 1995, the smallest city to do so in the 28-year history of the games.

Like many cities throughout North America, Grande Prairie experienced high growth in the late 1970s, with accompanying demands for infrastructure and increasing capital debt to meet the demands, followed by economic downturns and low growth in the 1980s. By 1984, capital projects had commenced or were required, and debt reached extremely high levels - $61 million, or $2,500 per capita. In 1985, the Alberta Municipal Financing Corporation refused to lend the city further funds for its capital requirements. Within two years, the city adopted a debt reduction and financial management policy with the principles of pay-as-you-go for capital project funding and orderly repayment of long-term debt. A special tax for capital purposes was introduced and has been maintained since. In 10 years, the debt was reduced to $27 million, or $900 per capita.

Then came the challenges of the 1990s. The city faced another no-growth scenario, pressure from taxpayers to hold the line on property tax increases, and extremely high debt levels of the provincial and federal governments. Grande Prairie needed to find a new way to conduct its business.

Strategic planning was introduced in 1991. Many management styles were considered in the years that followed: empowerment, reengineering, continuous improvement and other quality initiatives, downsizing, rightsizing, business process improvement, technology advancement, self-managed teams, and organizational restructuring. In 1993, the provincial government, in an effort to reduce its debt and balance its budget, announced that its grants to local governments would be substantially reduced during the next three years. The City of Grande Prairie was determined to be proactive in facing this new challenge.

In October 1993, city administrators proposed to city council that a business planning process be implemented. Council adopted a status-quo budget, and the following six months were used to develop a business planning process to meet the new challenges.

Developing a Framework

With the assistance of an external consultant, city council and staff worked to create a business planning framework. A business planning steering committee was formed with representation from council, senior management, administrators, and union and nonunion employees. Much of the philosophy of the book...