Improving Council Productivity

THE SOLUTION TO YEARS OF TAX INCREASES

Last term, Council established a committee to examine the question of reducing the size of council after the next election. On September 30, 2021 a report in the Owen Sound Suntimes by Denis Langlois informed us that the number of members on Owen Sound Council would remain at nine(9) for the next four year term. Councillor Dodd, who was the chair of the committee, felt that fewer councilor seats would make it more difficult for newcomers to be elected.

However the main argument against reducing council numbers seemed to be centered around having less representation for the community and losing “too many voices on council by reducing councilors to five” A motion by Councillor Koepke, to proceed to a public meeting on a proposed reduction in the number of Councillors failed.

Perhaps it’s time to revisit this issue. It could be that the reason that Owen Sound expenses have been increasing much faster than inflation and are now getting beyond the community’s ability to pay, is that we have too many leaders on Council. There have been many studies on this issue. There is a short article in Psychology Today that does a quick overview on this topic, Too Many Leaders Spoil the Group – Powerful people have trouble working together. Those who run for council are indeed leaders in the community. As this article suggests, sometimes leaders have difficulty in knowing when to follow and when to lead which hampers the ability of a group to get anything done.

However there is a much more compelling reason to downsize council from the current nine (9) to five (5). That is we need to attract the best in the community to direct our $63 million business, the Corporation of the City of Owen Sound. The facts show that the only thing that’s changed in the last ten years is that city budgets have ballooned to a point where this community is crying for Council to do something.

Few on our current council seem to be cognizant of the fact that half of our community households are struggling with after-tax, household incomes of less than $57,600. They do not have the luxury of having the free time to volunteer on a city committee or even be aware of what’s going on at city hall. They are too busy holding down more than one minimum wage job. We need more strong people on council to speak on their behalf, like Carol Merton and Jon Farmer. We also need strong people who truly understand what it’s like to run a business. People who know how to achieve more, while spending less, and how to get things done in spite of the roadblocks. We need more people with strong business acumen to lead the city during difficult times like, Scott Greig and Melanie Middlebro who both run their own businesses.

the Solution

So how can we attract top talent like these people to volunteer their time to lead our city? Prior to the last election I reached out to close to 50 people in the community to encourage them to run for council. A common theme I heard was, “I can’t afford it” and “my business would suffer”. As you may have read, in one of my recent posts, A Lean, Highly Motivated Team, I believe that the way you develop and keep a highly productive, results-focused, team is to pay them more than your competitors and motivate them with a bonus structure tied to Performance Objectives. At the same time we need to keep their numbers small in order to keep the team focused. There is some merit to the saying; “If you want something done – give it to a busy person”. As I said in this post, there is plenty of room to reduce the number of managers at city hall, which will increase their productivity, provided compensation is increased and a bonus structure is introduced aimed at encouraging specific achievements.

Well, the same goes for Council. I have heard many suggest that council is out of touch with the community. That after the election they forget about us until the next election. We can change that with two steps. First reduce the number of councillors from nine (9) to five (5); four councillors and a mayor, with each performing the duties of Deputy Mayor for one year. Second, increase the base pay for council and establish a bonus structure tied to achieving Performance Objectives that are set annually by a consensus of those attending a public meeting. This should keep the discussions around the council table focused on the people. If not, the people will let them know at an annual public meeting.

The base pay increase and the annual bonuses will be completely paid for by the savings from reducing the numbers. My calculations showing how we can achieve this without any impact on taxes are shown below.

In spite of the continuous positive spin that you hear from staff and some members of council Owen Sound is not doing well. We need to change what we’ve been doing for the last twenty (20) years because it’s not working. Penny Durst, recently commented on one of my posts. “Many years ago Owen Sound had a city council member, Mr. Agnew, who enticed those high-paying industries into the city: CPI (later PPG), Good Year Ind., etc.”
Owen Sound needs another “Mr. Agnew” right now. I believe that we will improve the odds of attracting someone with similar vision and results-focused skills as Mr. Agnew’s, if we increase council compensation and reduce their numbers to five (5) to cover the additional cost. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It’s time to change things up of Council. It’s time to try something different.

Email Councillor Koepke and ask her to bring back her motion to proceed to a public meeting on a proposed reduction in the number of Councillors. Then email all members of council and tell them we need to improve the probability of attracting another “Mr. Agnew” to change the status quo. We need to reduce the number of members of council to five (5). council@owensound.ca