The Town of Slave Lake is working to bring decades of municipal paperwork into the digital era, overhauling both its land development archives and internal personnel management systems.
Chief Administrative Officer Alex Pavcek presented council with a broad operational update during the Sept. 8 regular meeting, explaining that administration is actively transitioning traditional, paper-based filing cabinets into modernized digital databases.
The municipal modernization effort spans multiple departments, with significant projects underway in planning and development as well as human resources.
In planning and development, municipal staff have started transitioning to a fully digital land-base filing system. A report presented to council says the initiative involves reviewing existing paper land files and establishing a standardized procedure to digitize, index, and organize historical property documents.
The report says the digital transformation will improve accessibility to historical property records, support more efficient municipal records management, and modernize departmental operations when handling development inquiries, property searches, and zoning files.
CAO said that alongside the digital archive project, the planning department remains busy handling routine community activity. During August, the town issued eight development permits covering projects from building demolitions to space occupancy, while also processing five special event permits for local community functions.
At the same time, the town has partnered with its rural neighbour to seek provincial assistance for long-term regional planning. CAO said administration has started work on an application for the provincial government’s Alberta Community Partnership grant in collaboration with the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River.
The written administrative report says the joint grant project is designed to support regional planning initiatives and strengthen collaboration between municipal and regional partners as they share planning data and coordinate intermunicipal growth.
Inside the town hall, the administration is undertaking a similar modernization project to update its human resources systems. The town is moving away from its historical paper-based tracking methods by adopting an integrated workforce platform known as UKG.
CAO said the town has launched weekly implementation meetings for the UKG project. Municipal staff are currently in the initial requirements phase, which will be followed by building and configuring the platform to suit the town’s operational structure.
CAO said administration anticipates a full town-wide launch of the digital HR platform at the beginning of the second quarter of 2027.
While laying the groundwork for the new digital platform, the human resources department is managing ongoing recruitment and workplace policy reviews.
A report provided to council says the town had active job competitions in August for four municipal roles, including a manager of facilities and parks, an operations fire officer, a casual facility attendant, and a casual recreation and program representative. A job competition for an administrative assistant in records management was temporarily paused. CAO said interviews were underway for two of the positions.
The department is also conducting an organization-wide review of corporate policies, updating municipal guidelines concerning employment, respectful workplaces, and health and safety.
The written report says ongoing workplace safety initiatives include monthly first-aid training reviews, Incident Command System training evaluations, and new psychological safety sessions slated for all municipal staff in September.
Alex said health and safety was also preparing for an organization-wide Safety Stand Down Day on Sept. 10, with most town departments closing for the morning so staff could participate in rotating safety stations and project reviews.
Following the presentation of the report, Councillor Cindy Williams made a motion to accept the operational update as information, which council carried unanimously.
Armaan Khanna
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter