Lloydminster city councillors pressed administration July 20 on how the city can afford a new plan listing more than 140 projects and services.
City Manager Dion Pollard presented the 2026-2029 Administrative Corporate Plan, the city’s first attempt at translating council’s high-level strategic plan into department-by-department tasks.
“Today we’re excited to present the first rendition of the corporate plan,” said Pollard. “We’re pleased to present this with you today and open to any questions or comments you may have.”
Council did not vote on the plan. It was presented as an information report.
What’s the priority?
Councillor Michele Charles Gustafson said the document is easy to underestimate.
“I think what people maybe don’t understand is how tedious the administrative corporate plan is,” said Charles Gustafson.
She asked whether the plan spells out which of the 140 items matter most.
“Is there any articulation about what’s more important than the other?”
Pollard said start and completion dates offer some guidance, but each department sets its own yearly priorities.
“Council will have to, some of these require budget, and so if for whatever reason the budget doesn’t proceed for some of these tactics, then they may not get moved forward,” said Pollard.
Charles Gustafson pushed further, asking how council is supposed to weigh in on priorities it can’t fully see.
“How do we know as council what you perceive to be a priority so that we can consider what budget to put on that, or if we skip it this year and do it next year?”
Pollard said those questions can come up during the annual budget process or through quarterly financial updates. Chief of Staff Marie Pretty added the plan will be updated every year, tied to the budget cycle.
“The priorities of today, if that change it in six months or next year, and we bring this back to council, then that may be changed, as well as it being a living document,” said Pretty.
“There’s no way we’re doing this with the budget we have”
Councillor David Lopez raised the affordability question directly, pointing to rising costs and this year’s tax season.
“When I look at the team that the city has, it’s impossible to do it all,” said Lopez. “I looked at this, and I said, there’s no way we’re doing this with the budget we have.”
He asked what the plan would look like if council held the budget flat.
“When does the city have to start doing with less?” Lopez asked. “If we sat there and said budget stays flat because the economy just can’t handle any more, what does this look like?”
Pollard said the plan was never meant to promise new spending or new staff.
“The message I went out with this plan before I went out is don’t expect a whole bunch of financial and individual or staff resources to complete. It’s intended to maintain,” said Pollard.
“If council tells us that it’s a flat budget this year and no increases, then we’d have to go back and look, okay, what can we achieve? What can’t we achieve?”
Pollard called the document a two-way accountability tool.
“At the end of the day, it’s a good report card for us for administration, but also it’s also a report card for council to look at the number of things that goes into operating a city,” said Pollard. “It’s not just paving roads and running the odd rec facility.”
Lopez said he wants more context attached to each item going forward, including how long a project has been on the books and its budget impact.
“It’d be nice to know so that when we are talking budget and we are talking to people in the public, and they sit there and they bring one of these up, we can sort of have a little bit of ammunition to defend ourselves or defend administration.”
Inflation versus the city’s budget
Councillor Michael Diachuk asked whether city spending has kept pace with inflation.
“I don’t believe that our budget has grown at the rate inflation has grown,” said Diachuk. “I think inflation was six per cent or whatever one year, and we only went with a two per cent increase on our budget.”
A city finance official said comparing municipal costs to the consumer price index isn’t straightforward, since the city buys different things than households do, including fleet vehicles, construction contracts and unionized labour under collective agreements.
Diachuk said the comparison still matters in public conversations about tax increases.
“That’s kind of the challenge of having those conversations,” said Diachuk. “I know that when inflation was six per cent, we didn’t hit six per cent growth in our budget overall.”
Explaining the cost to taxpayers
Councillor Justin Vance asked administration to spell out, item by item, how each project benefits taxpayers and keeps costs in check.
“I think it would be best somehow to explain in some of these points on why we’re doing it and how it’ll help the taxpayer,” said Vance. “How the taxation implications are at a top priority and we’re still going to be cost cautious.”
Pollard said the plan was already a challenge to condense for public presentation, and staff can speak to individual cost impacts as items come up during budget discussions.
“We kind of kept it as concise as we could for public presentation and summarize it,” said Pollard. “But we can certainly take that into consideration.”
What’s next
Deputy Mayor Jason Whiting, chairing the meeting, asked how often the public will see updates.
Pretty confirmed both the summary document and the full 140-item activity list will be posted on the city’s website, with a status update added every year starting in 2027.
Whiting closed the discussion by noting the plan doesn’t capture everything the city does day to day.
“This isn’t all the things that the administration are doing,” said Whiting. “There’s a lot of stuff that still goes on behind the scenes on a day-to-day basis, and this is just part of the bigger picture.”
No motion was put forward on the item.
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