The City of St. Albert spent almost $900,000 on consultants last year, the 2023 annual report on consultant spending shows.
The report is the second of its kind after council passed a motion in the fall of 2022 asking for annual breakdowns of consultant spending.
READ MORE: City to report annually on consultant costs following council vote
The 2023 report, which can be accessed through the May 21 council meeting agenda, shows the city spent about $890,000 on consultant services in 2023, which is about $15,000 more than 2022.
The biggest line item in 2023, the report shows, was $188,813 for services from EPB (formerly known as Economic Development Research Group) for the development of a methodology and evaluation tool municipalities throughout the region can use to determine the value and timeliness of potential development locations.
The development site evaluation tool and methodology is part of a bigger economic development joint endeavour for 13 municipalities in the region, including St. Albert, Edmonton, Strathcona County, Leduc and Leduc County, Morinville, Sturgeon County, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, and more.
Last summer the Gazette reported the evaluation tool will help municipalities target specific industries to invest in their communities.
“Municipalities will be able to use the tool to see how a potential site aligns with [certain] criteria and use this information to target or attract specific industries or investment opportunities,” city spokesperson Cory Sinclair said at the time.
Although the consulting cost shows up on St. Albert's books, the conglomerate of municipalities received a provincial grant for the project, which St. Albert is responsible for managing.
According to the city's first-quarter 2024 financial and strategic plan report, the methodology and tool is expected to be finalized by the end of June.
Another major line item in the 2023 consultant spending report is a combined $135,813 paid to ISL Engineering for the company's services on continued “annexation support” following the city's 2022 annexation of just over 1,500 hectares of land from Sturgeon County, as well as services related to inter-municipal planning with the City of Edmonton.
READ MORE: St. Albert, Edmonton embark on joint planning project
Environmental and groundwater monitoring was a common example of consultant spending last year, the report shows, as the city hired four different companies to perform these services at a combined cost of almost $84,000.
On the other end of the scale, some of the smaller consulting contracts issued by the city last year ranged from $123 to $500.
These small contracts were largely for advertising services, such as the $200 the city reportedly paid to Meta for ads on Facebook, or the $300 the city paid to Great West Media — the company that owns and publishes the Gazette — for services related to the city's weekly Citylights advertisement in the newspaper.
Coun. Shelley Biermanski, who put the motion forward in the fall of 2022 to have administration present annual reports on consultant spending, said she was hoping overall consultant spending in 2023 would be less than in 2022.
“My whole intent of the motion is to gradually see it less each year,” she said. “I would like to see those numbers going down just because I believe that with consultants, we should be seeing true value for them, not just having them for the sake of having them.”
“I understand consulting needs for expertise specifically [like] maybe engineering or something like that, but a lot of consultants that I've seen so far that are hired for specific projects or for specific training are opinion-based consultants.”
A couple of the contracts listed in the report that Biermanski questioned include the $50,000 paid to the public affairs firm Canadian Strategy Group as a retainer for “advocacy” work, as well as the $3,750 paid to the University of Alberta for St. Albert's participation in the University-run Digital Economy Program, which pairs business students with small businesses and non-profits to improve the their online presence.
“In going through the list, there's one that we had on retainer, which I didn't agree with from the beginning,” she said. “I'd like to see that off next year's report.”
During the May 21 council meeting, chief administrative officer Bill Fletcher confirmed the Canadian Strategy Group contract was not renewed for 2024.
“The money's spent, nothing's going to change in the report, but going forward it's good to keep an eye on it.”
Coun. Ken MacKay said there was nothing listed in the report that stood out as a concern for him, as each item the city hired consultants for were for projects or services that can't be completed by city staff.
“The whole idea behind getting consultants is really around work that we just don't have the level of skill or the competencies to do,” he said. “We are a mid-sized city, but we just don't have the specialized staff that actually have that skill set, so you have to engage consultants.”
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“That's kind of the purpose when you bring in consultants, it's around a little bit more expertise and specific work that we need done.”
