Fee-for service reviews being addressed by SPC
By Lethbridge Herald on October 10, 2024.
Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
Plans for fee-for-service reviews of Economic Development Lethbridge and Tourism Lethbridge will be discussed today when the Economic and Finance Standing Policy Committee of city council meets.
The meeting, which consists of the mayor and all council members, starts at 9:30 a.m. in council chambers at City Hall.
Chief Financial Officer and treasurer Darrell Mathews will discuss the draft fee-for-service cost benefit analysis for Economic Development Lethbridge and Tourism Lethbridge in one presentation.
Those analyses were brought up to the SPC and council in early summer.
Mathews’ report says the objective of cost benefit analysis plans for both organizations is to “evaluate the current and alternative models of services provided to the City of Lethbridge by EDL and Tourism Lethbridge, and to review the operational recommendations from the KPMG Phase 3 report.”
Mathews is recommending that the SPC recommend to council it receive for information the draft review plans to be used by City administration to conduct the reviews of EDL and Tourism Lethbridge.
His report says there won’t be any additional cost for internal City resources but there may be a need to contract some business advisory services for tourism expertise which could cost up to $100,000. That money would be funded from existing operating budget funding for that type of work, says the report.
The report notes that EDL says its time commitments would amount to about 152.5 hours or $11,500 but it isn’t looking for funding – “rather this depicts the opportunity cost of working on the FFS CBA review,” says the report.
Tourism Lethbridge has identified about 204.5 hours or $15,000 in time commitments and it too is “depicting the opportunity cost for their staff of working” on the review.
A June 11 motion of council to direct City Manager Lloyd Brierley to undertake a review of fee-for-service agreements with those two organizations was deferred to the July 11 meeting of Economic and Finance SPC to gather more information.
On July 11, the SPC directed administration to work with EDL and Tourism Lethbridge to “create a scoping document, timeline, budget, as well as workload and resources required from each organization” and recommended that council direct administration to return to today’s SPC meeting with a report considering the KPMG report recommendations for EDL which were discussed by council on July 23.
The Lethbridge Economic Development Initiative Society was established by council on June 17, 2002, registered under the Societies Act a year later and operates as EDL which is an independent organization operating at arms length from the City.
There are several objectives for the review of EDL including:
1. whether EDL is achieving City’s municipal economic development objectives in an effective and efficient manner at a cost-benefit to the City of Lethbridge;
2. whether EDL’s MOU has clearly defined performance metrics that provide a clear, concise picture of alignment with City of Lethbridge priorities and with outcomes that correlate to the fee for service funds provided;
3. whether, in each case, the City of Lethbridge would be best served by continuing with the existing MOU/Fee-for-Service model or considering other models for the delivery of such services;
4. the efficacy of existing connection points between Economic Development Lethbridge, Tourism Lethbridge, and internal City departments as well as any potential synergies or changes that merit consideration;
5. through environmental scan recommend any future goals or objectives the City of Lethbridge should consider to the MOU, and;,
6. completion of the KPMG Phase 3 Operational Review of EDL recommendations.
The review of Tourism Lethbridge is to determine:
1. whether Tourism Lethbridge is achieving City’s municipal tourism objectives in an effective and efficient manner at a cost-benefit to the City of Lethbridge;
2. whether Tourism Lethbridge’s fee-for-service agreement has clearly defined performance metrics that provide a clear, concise picture of alignment with City of Lethbridge priorities and with outcomes that correlate to the funds provided;
3. whether, in each case, the City of Lethbridge would be best served by continuing with the existing LDMO fee-for-service model or considering other models for the delivery of such services;
4. the efficacy of existing connection points between Tourism Lethbridge, Economic Development Lethbridge and internal City departments as well as any potential synergies or changes that merit consideration, and;
5. through environmental scan, recommend any future goals or objectives for an amendment to the LDMO Terms of Reference or Destination Management Plan for council to consider.
In the July 11 SPC meeting, Mathews said fee-for-service providers for the City “provide municipal components or services for the community and that’s why they get funding through our operating budget.
“We always need to take a look at those,” said Mathews at that meeting, for the dollar values and the community benefit.
The difference in this review, said Mathews at that meeting, is that it would go further into giving a full-cost benefit.
“It’s actually going to take a look at a lot of those other factors, the benefits,” added Mathews, saying it doesn’t mean funding is taken away – there could be recommendations that more funding is needed.
“It does actually set up the performance metrics, it reviews the mandate that council has to ensure it’s correct, to make sure that there is a mandate and objectives provided,” with the review also looking at other methods with the same objectives that could be done, he said in July.
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