If you were lucky enough to have your pet project make it into the Sunshine Coast Regional District's current-year budget, how do you know when and if it is going to get completed?
You can drive past a physical location, (like the site of wastewater system upgrade) but you may or may not be able to see any progress. How do you find out what's going on, short of the old-fashioned phone call or message to your area director or the department you think is responsible? And where could they easily access those details to share with you?
Enter the re-envisioned corporate work plan report, as introduced to elected officials and the public at the March 27 committee of the whole meeting. It’s a tool that took nine months to develop, “to align strategic priorities with organizational resources and guide project delivery” according to a report on the meeting agenda.
Committee chair and Area D director Kelly Backs was “overjoyed” to introduce the item, stating, “It is one of the best pieces I have seen in my two and a half years on the board," and something that will help “organize the organization."
A reporting and prioritization tool
It’s a spreadsheet that lists approved projects with resourcing details, both monetary budget and assigned staff hours and other information. One of its most prominent features: a red line that indicates the limits of the organization’s current capacity.
That line hits mid-page six, at project 126 in the 10-page listing of 227 projects. Initiatives listed above the red line were recommended by the committee as “prioritized for implementation in 2025." Those below that crimson border are not prioritized for 2025, with the committee recommending they be “formally deferred for reconsideration in the 2026 planning cycle."
That’s a contrast to the workplan reports forerunner; the budget project status report. The Sept. 26, 2024 version of that behemoth of a spreadsheet covered 21 pages.
Like any plan, this “reporting and prioritization tool” is subject to change. As explained by chief administrative officer Tina Perreault, as projects above the red line are completed, capacity is anticipated to free up for projects below the line to move up. Other adjustments, such as a delay that is outside the SCRD’'s control, or a board decision could also result in a top section project dropping down and an initiative once being slated for reconsideration rallying up the priority list.
The plan is to act as a tool for both board decision-making and operational execution. In the words of Perreault, the document is “trying to provide something that is not too cumbersome and highlight areas where attention is needed rather than going line by line through a couple of hundred different things."
An updated version of the workplan report is slated to be in front of directors every two months. Up for consideration is linking those updates with the departmental quarterly reports. Perreault said this might not happen when 2025 Q1 reports come forward in April, but she will be pushing for it to be available when 2025 Q2 results go to elected officials in July.
What is above and below the red line?
There’s little surprise that projects related to water supply, wastewater management and the future of solid waste are in the first 59 lines (and are sprinkled throughout the remaining spots above the red line) of the workplan draft reviewed last week.
The firefighter compensation action plan is in the prioritized section, as are the Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw Updates. Also in the top 126 is the Cliff Gilker Park sports field’s irrigation upgrade.
Falling below the red line are three large roof repair projects for the Sechelt Aquatic and Gibsons Community Centres. Keats Landing dock renovations, a region-wide sports fields strategy, parks service review, Cliff Gilker bridges and trail remediation and cross connection control program are also relegated to the lower priority category.
The CAO noted that the workplan report version shared at the committee meeting did not include listings of completed projects, which she said there are a few and that a few more will likely be added before the next iteration goes public.
That section of the report is what excites Perreault. She is eager to show initiatives marked as completed, and providing opportunities for projects to spring up above the line into current-year focus. The full draft workplan report can be reviewed on the March 27 committee of the whole agenda posted on SCRD.ca.
