The County and City Councils come to an agreement on Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework

The County of Grande Prairie and City of Grande Prairie Councils come to an agreement on Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework

Today, the Councils of the County of Grande Prairie and the City of Grande Prairie adopted a new Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework (ICF), which identifies the relationship between the two municipalities in providing shared services to residents and ratepayers. The modernized Municipal Government Act (MGA) requires bordering municipalities to develop an ICF to facilitate and encourage cooperation and cost sharing ensuring efficient services are provided to residents.

“This finalization of the ICF sets the foundation for any future negotiations or agreements between the County and the City,” said Mayor Jackie Clayton. “This ICF includes agreement to collaborate on eleven service areas between the City and the County ensuring effective and efficient services for our respective communities. Each of these service agreements were reviewed as part of the ICF development process.”

These service agreements include, but are not limited to, a Fire Mutual Aid Agreement, development of a Labour Force Study, shared training and learning opportunities, and the integration of publicly accessible datasets. The two municipalities have many other agreements in place that are not included in the ICF.

The City and County have come to an agreement on the net financial contribution for various service provision in the region. “The County will contribute $1.5 million dollars a year for four years, retroactive to April 1, 2021, to support City services. This includes those our residents utilize in the City,” said Reeve Leanne Beaupre. “Through the development of the ICF, we recognized that there was an absence of good information on the usage of City and County facilities and services. The collection of this data will provide valuable information as a new agreement is developed following the end of this agreement term.”

Intermunicipal Collaboration Committee

The ICF includes the establishment of an Intermunicipal Collaboration Committee comprised of members from each Council. The first priority of the Committee is to ensure the collection of usage and cost data to assist in the development of a new agreement, which will start on April 1, 2025.

Overall, the Committee will address and develop future service agreements and/or cost sharing arrangements; facilitate an effective working relationship between the municipalities; encourage and establish early engagement and proactive communications; provide a forum for discussion, consensus building and making recommendations to respective Councils; and be a forum to address intermunicipal disputes.

The County also committed to continue supporting the Grande Prairie Public Library and The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie through annual funding requests. In 2021, this was $302,509 and $75,000 respectively and in 2022, $311,585 and $75,000.

During the ICF development process, the City and County were unable to come to an understanding relating to the interpretation of the previously negotiated Revenue Sharing Agreement. An arbitrator ruled that the revenue sharing funding is for fostering regional development and is not related to cost sharing for services as pertains to ICF. This ruling helped the municipalities negotiate the new Cost Sharing and Information Sharing Agreement and complete the ICF process.

The ICF expires five years after the adoption date, or February 7, 2027. The municipalities will meet at least every second year to review the ICF agreement. 

Background  

In 2017, the Province introduced legislation requiring neighbouring municipalities to negotiate frameworks, which are intended to: 

• Provide for integrated planning, delivery and funding of intermunicipal services 
• Allocate scarce resources efficiently to provide local services 

• Ensure municipalities contribute funding to services that benefit their residents 

As part of the ICF process, the following eleven collaborative service arrangements were reviewed:

• Cost Sharing and Information Sharing Agreement: outlines the terms the City and County have agreed upon to ensure various City and County services remain equally accessible to residents in both municipalities. This agreement also represents the net compensation to be provided by the County to the City for various services accessible to residents in both the City and the County.

• Fire Services Mutual Aid: enables both municipalities to make fire service requests of the other municipality. The agreement also introduces an auto-aid component where the closest station will respond to a call regardless of which jurisdiction that call falls within in select, predetermined areas. Encourages development of cooperative procedures and protocols to enhance the fire departments.
• Geographical Information Systems (GIS): processes for integration of publicly accessible datasets.
• Grande Prairie Regional Emergency Partnership (GPREP): regional emergency partnership for emergency planning, preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery.
• Labour Force Survey: partner with Grande Prairie & District Chamber of Commerce and others to create a Labour Force Study.
• Procurement: explores joint procurement where feasible, collaborate and share process, best practices and knowledge.
• Quasi-Judicial Board Members: share board members as needed and collaborate on board member training.
• Safety Codes Training: hold joint training sessions for tradespeople and builders when new codes are introduced.
• Training and Development: collaborate on employee training opportunities.
• Signal Light Pre-emption: County emergency vehicles and traffic signals will be outfitted with equipment that will allow them to connect to the City’s pre-emption system. This will allow County emergency vehicles to more quickly travel through City and County signaled intersections thereby reducing response times.
• Traffic Light Maintenance: the City’s maintenance of traffic lights at County’s signaled intersections.

Attachments

• Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework Agreement
• Arbitrators Ruling with Respect to Preliminary Issue

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