Vauxhall improves in 2024 municipal indicator stats

Posted on July 10, 2025 by Vauxhall Advance

By Nikki Jamieson
Vauxhall Advance
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

During their regular June 16 meeting, Vauxhall town council reviewed a report on municipal indicators.

Presented during the CAO report, municipal indicators are an aggregate performance measure of the various municipalities throughout the province, taking a look at different financial, governance and community indicators. The results are calculated based on information provided by municipalities, including from sources such as the municipality’s financial statements, municipal census, election results, and any ministerial orders issued to the municipality. This data is then compared to several benchmarks, or indicators, that ranks how well a municipality is doing, and goes back five years.

The benchmarks measured include audit outcome, ministry intervention, tax base balanced, population change, current ratio of assets to liabilities, accumulated surplus/deficit, on-time financial reporting, debt to revenue percentage, investment in infrastructure, infrastructure age, and interest in municipal office.

According to the data for the 2024 reporting year, the Town of Vauxhall has scored positively across the board, except in the interest in municipal office category, which measure the number of candidates running in a municipal election relative to the total number of councillor positions up for election. In the 2024 data, Vauxhall scored ‘1’, meaning that the ratio of interested candidates is equal to the amount of available council seats. While the province only has data for this category during reporting years that contain either a by-election or an election, in comparison, 2023 had a score of ‘2’, while 2021 had a score of ‘1.14’

Town CAO Cris Burns did not express concern over the flagged data, saying that “The red flag indicator for lack of interest in running for council is a false positive considering that we held two by-elections this last term.” The last municipal election was held in 2021, and Vauxhall held two separate byelections in 2023 and 2024, which saw Couns. Henry Zacharias and Russel Norris join council.

The next municipal election will take place Monday, Oct. 20, with voting stations being open on the day of from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Those interested in running must submit their nomination to the town office by noon on Sept. 22. More information about the election and nominations is available on the town’s website.

Other items of note in the report included the town’s improvement in the investment in infrastructure (the ratio of replacing existing tangible capital assets and investing in new assets and infrastructure vs. the estimated wear/obsolescence of existing assets) and infrastructure age categories (the net book value of tangible capital assets as a percentage of the total original costs), for which Vauxhall scored 1.6 and 41.09 per cent respectively. In comparison, in 2023, they scored 0.85 and 37. 11 per cent, 0.74 and 38.83 per cent in 2022, and 0.9 and 39.24 per cent in 2021. Burns attributed this improvement to council investing in replacing the sanitary trunk main, which was expected to be completed around the end of June or early July, and the arena ice surface floors in the town’s arena.

To see how Vauxhall and other municipalities scored on their municipal indicators, visit http://www.alberta.ca/municipal-indicators.