It has been a revolving door at the officer of Turner Valley’s chief administration officer over the past year, but an agreement with the MD of Foothills should provide the Town with some stability.
The MD of Foothills and the Town of Turner Valley signed a Management Services Agreement on March 25 and as part of that agreement the MD will provide the Town with a chief administrative officer (CAO) for the next two years.
Leslie Fitzgerald, who is also the current part-time CAO for the Village of Longview as part of a similar shared services agreement, brings a wealth of experience to her new role in Turner Valley.
“I’ve worked everywhere from a small village up to the MD of Foothills,” said Fitzgerald. “I’ve had excellent mentors throughout my career. Anything I don’t know, I can find somebody else in the MD or elsewhere that can give me the answers.”
Fitzgerald brings almost 23 years of experience in municipal government to her new position with the Town. She worked for several years as the CAO of Cayley starting in 1988, and worked in taxes and grants for the MD of Foothills before becoming CAO of Longview. Fitzgerald is also a member of the Society of Local Government Managers of Alberta, and is a certified local government manager.
Having only recently been appointed CAO, Fitzgerald said she has been working with the Town’s staff to get up to speed on issues affecting Turner Valley.
“Everything from the new town shop to future development, possible marketing opportunities, and new accounting software for the administration staff,” explained Fitzgerald. “I’ve just been getting caught up on what’s what, and then we’ll go from there.”
The Town’s administrative staff will continue to handle the daily operations in Turner Valley, while Fitzgerald’s role will be mostly at the managerial level.
“I’m just there to advise and make the final decision,” she said. “I have a fantastic management team. The staff is wonderful, the managers are all experts in their fields, and I’ll basically just be listening to them and taking their advice.”
Fitzgerald said as CAO her goal is to be able to hand off a well-managed municipality to the next person who takes over the role.
The benefit of shared management between the MD of Foothills and the Town of Turner Valley is a reduced cost, said Fitzgerald.
Turner Valley Mayor Kelly Tuck said the agreement is expected to result in significant cuts to expenses, although she couldn’t divulge yet exactly how much.
“The (CAO) contract came up for renewal, and this made more sense for cost saving for the municipality,” said Tuck.
MD of Foothills Reeve Larry Spilak agreed it is important for neighbouring municipalities to partner together.
“There’s only one taxpayer and the resources are limited,” said Spilak. “As we are challenged with these extra costs for delivering services to residents, we need to find different ways of doing that in a cost-effective way.”
