Financial Roadmap

Financial Roadmap: Building a Stronger Financial Future 

The Financial Roadmap is a long-term strategy to strengthen the City of Red Deer’s financial foundation. Adopted by City Council in July 2025, it provides a clear path forward to ensure we can continue delivering quality services while planning responsibly for the future.

What is the Financial Roadmap? 

The Financial Roadmap is a comprehensive plan developed with support from KPMG, identifying opportunities to improve financial governance, systems, policies, and reporting. It offers a 20-year lens to help Red Deer make sustainable, data-informed financial decisions.

It’s about doing better with what we have – ensuring transparency, efficiency, and resilience in how we plan and manage public funds.

Why It Matters 

Red Deer is facing increasing financial pressures: inflation, stagnant revenues, aging infrastructure, and growing service demands. At the same time, we are committed to responsible spending and delivering value to residents.

The Roadmap outlines a proactive approach to:

  • Strengthening internal financial policies
  • Modernizing tools and systems
  • Improving decision-making through better reporting
  • Supporting long-term affordability and service delivery

What’s Included 

The Financial Roadmap focuses on four key areas:

Financial Policy Updates

  • Reserve management
  • Utility and rate-setting policies
  • Off-site levy policy modernization

Organizational Capacity

  • Restructuring the Finance Department
  • Recruiting a permanent Chief Financial Officer (in progress)
  • Internal training and resource planning

Improved Financial Reporting

  • More transparent performance metrics
  • Improved access to financial data for Council and the public

Modernized Systems & Tools

  • Phased rollout of enterprise performance management (EPM) software
  • Introduction of zero-based budgeting (pilot: Parking Services for Budget 2026)
  • Enhanced integration of financial data across departments

Financial Scorecard: Measuring Progress Over Time

As part of the Financial Roadmap, a comparative analysis was completed to better understand Red Deer’s financial position relative to other Alberta municipalities, including Airdrie, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and St. Albert.

This assessment focused on three key financial principles:

  • Sustainability – The City’s ability to deliver services and meet financial commitments without increasing debt or taxes beyond what the local economy can support.
  • Flexibility – The City’s ability to respond to financial pressures by using available tools like reserves, user fees, or debt.
  • Vulnerability – The City’s exposure to external revenue sources it does not control, such as government grants.

The analysis showed that Red Deer has work to do in strengthening long-term financial resilience. Key observations include:

  • The City generates less surplus per household than comparator municipalities, limiting our ability to respond to future challenges.
  • Financial assets and reserve levels are below benchmark averages and trending downward.
  • While Red Deer is using more of its borrowing capacity than peers, there is still room to responsibly leverage debt to support key investments.
  • The City has experienced greater volatility in provincial and federal grant funding than others, increasing our reliance on unpredictable revenue sources.

These indicators provide an important baseline as we move forward. We will continue to monitor and report on these measures to track our progress and ensure our financial strategies are delivering results.

Roadmap Progress 

We are already moving forward with several foundational changes. Key milestones include:

Timeline Milestone
July 2025 Roadmap approved by City Council
August 2025 Capital reporting to Audit Committee and Council 
Fall 2025 Policy review and CFO recruitment underway
Late 2025 Initial system upgrades begin
Q1 2026 First progress update to Audit Committee
Throughout 2026 Ongoing implementation and reporting

Governance & Accountability 

To ensure transparency and progress tracking:

  • Quarterly implementation updates will be reported to the Audit Committee
  • Major milestones will be shared on this webpage and in Council recaps
  • The public will have access to key documents and presentations

Resources & Documents 

Stay Informed 

This page will be updated as implementation progresses. Check back for updates on timelines, deliverables, and ways you can follow along.