C. Reduce - Tighten the Support Services Group
1) Examine the Organization for Redundant Services
Before reaching out to other municipalities to share services, Owen Sound needs to first examine its workforce to identify and eliminate the duplication of services. For example, Owen Sound has two IT Managers and two Corporate Services Managers. One IT Manager (Mark Giberson) and one Corporate Services Manager(Bradey Carbert) report to the Director of Corporate Services; while, one IT Manager (Christopher Hill) and one Corporate Services Manager (Suzanne Bell-Matheson) report to the Chief of Police. It just doesn’t make sense to have two separate Information Technology Departments. All of Owen Sound’s Information Technology services should be centrally managed. It may be convenient for Police Services to have their own IT department but Owen Sound Taxpayers cannot afford to fund the luxury of such redundant services. The fact that Police Services reports to the Police Services Board and not the City Manager makes no difference when it comes to administrative support services since all positions are funded by the same global city budget. Council needs to direct that all administrative support services, such as IT are centrally provided. We cannot afford individual departments, including Police and Fire Services, operating in silos and providing their own administrative support services such as IT, HR and Corporate Services.2) Investigate the Outsourcing of Some Support Services
An alternative solution to sharing selective support services with other municipalities is contracting out services. For example, just as some municipalities have chosen to outsource their Police Services, selective support services such as Information Technology, Human Resources and Payroll can also be outsourced. council should explore the possibilities.3) Right Size the Workforce
Owen Sound city hall is grossly overstaffed, which contributes to a large part of this problem. When we compared senior management salaries, using the Sunshine List, we concluded that Owen Sound is overstaffed by as many as 8 managers. In regard to Salaries & Benefits expense Owen Sound spends $3.9 million more than the average of the three primary comparators and $1.5 million more than Cobourg.
The positions involved can be readily identified by comparing Owen Sound’s staffing to that of Cobourg’s and involve a unnecessary level of middle management positions. In attempting to rebut the MNP report stating that a few management positions should be deleted, the city manager gave us some insight into the root of the problem. He stated that some managers were “Managers of Process” which was why they had no direct reports. In the real world if you have a process in your organization that requires a person with a six-figure salary to babysit it, then you need to reorganize to change or eliminate the process.
One example of redundant middle management is Corporate Services. There is a Director of Corporate Services and Treasurer, a Manager of Corporate Services and a Deputy Treasurer. The City Clerk’s Office, IT and HR are all overstaffed by at least one manager in the comparison with Cobourg and the City Manager’s office is over staffed by two managers, Senior Manager Strategic Initiatives and Manager Community Development & Marketing. That’s a total 6 additional management positions in these two departments alone as compared to Cobourg.
Overstaffing developed incrementally over a long period of time. It nearly always involved what appeared to be reasonable requests supported by persuasive arguments of the need. For example, we are conscious about climate change, so, of course we need to create a new climate change position. We create a new Short Term Rental (STR) program, so, of course we need to create a new position to manage the program. Owen Sound is the only municipality that does this. Other, ‘cost- conscious’, municipalities build in climate change initiatives into the coalface by educating front line staff and add new requirements, such as the STR program, to existing staff by prioritizing their activities. The total overstaffing, including these management positions is in the order of 25 to 31 positions in comparison with the other municipalities in the study group.
We saw the city disband Accessibility Advisory Committee, which reduced staff workload to some degree, yet there was no staff proposal to delete a position. A high performing business would have simply transferred the person hours saved by no longer needing to support the Accessibility Advisory Committee to cover the new workload created by the Short-Term Rental bylaw.
We saw a similar example some time ago as well when the Human Resources manager became swamped by a large volume of firefighter grievances. This temporary workload challenge was addressed by creating a second Human Resources manager position. This was certainly not the most cost-effective way of dealing with this problem. This decision by senior management to solve this problem by hiring a second HR Manager gives us some insight into how management’s priorities.
Overstaffing at city hall is almost entirely the result of a part-time council’s inability to effectively challenge municipal staff’s natural propensity to grow their numbers. No business could survive if they grew their workforce at a similar rate without first growing sales.
If Owen Sound were to match the average of the three primary comparators we would need to reduce the workforce by 31 employees which would result in a reduction of $3.9 million in Salaries & Benefits expense. If we were to just match Cobourg’s workforce we would have to reduce Owen Sound’s workforce by 24 employees; which would result in a reduction in Salaries & Benefits expense of $1.5 million. This translates into a reduction in taxes of approximately 4.7%.