Consultant gives Town a B

Posted By Brad Herron

Posted 25 days ago

They aren't perfect and the Ivy League isn't going to accept them anytime soon, but the Town of Cochrane is a solid B student. And that's something to be proud of, according to a consultant tasked for completing an audit of the Town.

Gordon Harris, with Western Management Consultants, presented the Municipal Health Check and Best Practices Review to council Oct. 26.

The review was mostly favourable for the Town of Cochrane, with every area under review receiving at least a C grade in the balanced report card. Although the Town received three Cs, it was also given A marks in community outreach and financial health.

Also included in the audit report where 25 recommendations on how the Town can improve on as it moves towards 30,000 residents.

Harris said the key priorities for the Town of Cochrane need to focus on strategic priorities and create outcome-based performance measures for the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and members of the senior leadership team, formerly called senior staff. The reason for focusing on outcome-based measures is to gauge the success of council's direction and how effectively those directives have been put into action.

"It's very difficult to hit that mark if they don't know what that mark is," Harris said.

As part of this recommendation to create new performance measures for senior staff designed to focus less on day-to-day operations and more on high-level strategic outcomes, the consultant told council to alter their job descriptions.

While the decision still needs to be made by council during the budget deliberations, Harris outlined two potential organizational charts which feature either three or four individuals taking input from the managers of departments and reporting to the CAO. The CAO, as council's employee, would report to council.

He also recommended analyzing the relationship between council and the Chief Administrative Officer and the rest of Town staff, as there was initial opposition to council's priorities after the municipal election in 2007.

"Through our stakeholder consultation we did hear things have been getting a little better. They were a little testy after the election, but things appear to be getting better and that is a consistent message we have been getting from all of you," Harris said.

Contained within the report was a statement that the current communications department was not meeting the support needs of council and was a consistent concern among most on council.

"Communication was a sore point following the election, so being able to understand the needs of the council, administration needs to ensure you get the support you need to reach out to your community," Harris said, adding communications should be moved into to corporate services where a manager can oversee its operations and performance.

He also recommended holding a monthly meeting where council can receive information on projects from Town staff in the public sphere. This not only improves the transparency of the Town but provides another outlet of information gathering by council. Coun. Tara McFadden made a motion to hold these meetings after the first meeting of the month and it will be debated Nov. 9.

Harris told council they have done an excellent job in reaching out the people of Cochrane and valuing their input.

"Your sustainability plan, your engagement of the community are very positive elements. How you keep that going moving forward will be the challenge," Harris said.

A key to moving with these recommendations forward will be hiring competent staff for the positions, giving them the resources they need to complete the task accordingly and then getting out of their way. Council's role, Harris said, is to provide strategic direction and not focus on how a job is done.

Coun. Miles Chester said council needs to follow the rules and responsibility they were given as election officials and not meander into other Town affairs.

He also expressed concern about how the Town's management structure will be organized following this report, and speculated openly about the naming of the positions — deputy CAO was one option brought forward by the council to which Chester disagreed with — and how many directors the town would need.

Julian deCocq, the Town's CAO, addressed this later in the meeting by saying staff would prepare a report on the organization chart for presentation during the 2010 budget deliberations.