MD OF BIGHORN – The MD of Bighorn is looking ahead to the next five years, and with its new corporate strategic plan it has a road map to follow.
The strategic plan identifies six goals that aim to enhance the MD’s communities, have healthy and productive relationships with residents, businesses and its municipal neighbours and continue to manage and invest in its municipal infrastructure.
“Going back in our history, our strategic plan has looked like a project to-do list,” Reeve Lisa Rosvold said. “This identifies some goals we want to work towards. We want to identify strategic initiatives as projects and that is how we are connecting our budget to our strategic priorities.”
The strategic plan also outlines the municipal services needed by the community and visitors, continue to focus on the environment and climate change and have a balance between being a tourism destination and an area of economic opportunities.
The corporate strategic plan isn’t just something that council will refer to from time to time, but a document that will influence budgets and major decisions moving forward.
“When we take requests for decisions to council, if applicable to the six pillars with this strategic plan, they are tied to that whenever we can,” said Frank Besinger, interim CAO of the MD.
The MD will now develop the strategic initiatives and tie those into the capital projects in the municipality.
“You will start to see that develop in the budget as we go through the capital projects for 2023,” said Shaina Tutt, director of corporate and community services. “The budget identifies how they relate to the goals of the strategic plan. It is tying in the administrative components to the council’s strategic goals.”
The MD will continue to share the strategic vision with the residents of the MD of Bighorn. Many of the goals within the plan were brought to administration by the public.
“Making sure the public feels that we have heard them and that we identified some of the thoughts and concerns of the public,” Rosvold said.
Typically, the strategic plan is updated every five years, but that can change, especially as the world tends to change quickly these days.
“That decision becomes council’s decision if they see major changes and we have a major shift in how we do business,” Besinger said. “It can also come from a recommendation from administration.”
Nothing is set in stone until that point, and the document has been called a living document by Rosvold.
“We don’t want anyone to think that now that we have this in writing, we are done thinking about what our goals will be,” Rosvold said. “If something does come out, it will be added to the strategic plan. That is how it evolves. It is not a static document.”
The strategic plan identifies six goals:
- Enhance the MD’s communities.
- Foster healthy and productive relationships with MD residents, industries, neighbours and partners.
- Manage, invest and plan for sustainable municipal infrastructure.
- Ensure municipal services evolve to address the needs of residents, visitors and service providers.
- Safely and thoughtfully balance the challenge of being both a popular tourism destination and an area rich in economic opportunities.
- Steward the natural environment and strengthen our resilience in the face of climate change.
