Efficiency, not necessarily cost savings, is the focus of a new zero-based review (ZBR) pilot project upcoming on select City of Calgary business units.

Calgary city councillors approved the first $1 million in a potential $4 million plan by a vote of 13-2 during the March 31, 2026, Regular Meeting of Council, paving the way for the selection of three city business units to participate in the ZBR pilot.

Chris Sainsbury with KPMG, the company chosen to create the ZBR plan, said that this project differs from past projects like the City of Calgary’s prior SAVE program, which found $60 million in operational cash.

“As part of this, we wanted to make it clear, this wasn’t a purely cost savings initiative in terms of shaving ‘X’ percent,” he said.

“It was much more, how can we drive efficiencies, whether it’s through the use of resources, whether that’s organizational, whether that’s improved processes, reducing duplication. So, it was much more from the efficiency perspective.”

Sainsbury said that they would be trying to identify ways to create long-term accumulation of benefits. That might include a series of simple metrics like hours saved, potential repurposing of staff, or improving process flows.

The goal would be to help limit future expenditure growth through efficiency today, thereby creating a savings of sorts on an ongoing basis.

“This is very much about looking at long term efficiency across the city and driving those efficiencies and potential associated savings across the longer term, rather than specifying a specific target, where you strive to do that in year one and then you may kind of lose steam as you go forward,” Sainsbury said.

The next step in the process will be to use the selection criteria to find the right business units. They will be selected by their alignment with council priorities in cost savings, readiness of the unit to participate, impact to other business units and the size of the operation expenditures.

There will be an extra layer of qualitative criteria, with the city determining the final selection and sequencing.

Duplication of already ongoing efforts

Calgary’s Chief Administrative Officer David Duckworth has long heralded city administration’s ongoing work to find efficiencies and cost savings in the delivery of their work. It’s a phrase he mentions during virtually every budget presentation.

That’s what raised the eyebrow of Ward 8 Coun. Nathaniel Schmidt, who asked about duplication of efforts.

“The different reviews that we always have ongoing, is there value to be added here on top of the work that we’re already doing as a city, to look at these types of things?” Schmidt asked.

Sainsbury said that part of the vetting process would be to ensure that work already being done by the City of Calgary isn’t pooled into this work.

“The intent is definitely not to duplicate and fully recognize there’s ongoing initiatives across the across the city,” he said.

Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said he wouldn’t support the work, given that there would be a cost savings already of not going ahead with a $4 million program. He also noted that past ZBRs (SAVE program) were responsible for cutting things like the City of Calgary census, which has become a thorn in the side of Calgary city council and ended up costing the city more than what was saved.

“I think there are ways we could invest this money better into our own administration, our own processes that drive better efficiencies, whether we want to call that efficiencies or cost reductions,” Atkinson said.

“I mean, it’s a lot of pretzel making to sort of come to the end result.”

Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly was concerned that they would be asked to approve the next batch of city business units before they even received results of this first round of work.

The first reporting period would be May 2027, with implementation in the first cohort not expected until June 2027. That’s when they would begin mobilization the next business units.

‘Huge savings to be found’: Coun. McLean

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean put forward the motion last December to push ahead with zero-based reviews. He said it takes time to set up the programs, but it will be worth it when the work is complete.

“I think there’s a huge savings to be found. But not only that, efficiencies where we can deliver road, snow removal and mowing… on our transit routes,” he said.

“The more efficiencies we can find, that’s going to be good for the public. But of course, I think there’s tens of millions of dollars of savings to be found as well.”

Ward 6 Coun. John Pantazopoulos said he’s interested in seeing the accountability and the repeatability between business units.

“I think this comes back to a conversation we’ve had a lot of council about changing of culture,” he said.

“Ultimately, now it’s continuous improvement. To me, zero based budgeting is continuous improvement.”

Mayor Jeromy Farkas reiterated that it wasn’t necessarily all about find massive cost savings. While he grilled the presenter and city administration on guardrails in place to prevent the cutting of programs that would ultimately benefit the City of Calgary, he said it’s always good to go through these reviews.

“We’re overdue for this process. I went through similar process in my first city council term, we shouldn’t fear that level of scrutiny,” he said.

He said it’s reasonable over a council term to leave no stone unturned in delivering efficiency and cost savings to Calgarians.  

“The zero-based review process is not just quantitative in terms of the amount of money that can be saved, but it’s also qualitative in terms of best practices, better ways to be able to provide services,” he said.

 “My anticipation is that we’ll save at least as much as what we invest into finding the savings.”