Thursday, May 19, 2011

Crowsnest Pass Municipal Office Does it need to grow?

Recently a number of people have asked me about the municipal office. There appears to be a controversy brewing about relocating some office staff to a different location. A little background to give the reader a better sense of what is causing the problem.


Right now you have twenty people in the office, the CAO, four department heads a contract assessor, safety officer, bylaw officer, and twelve ladies looking after the various functions covered by those departments.

Again that’s twenty people, this last budget council added a number of full time positions, a Foreman, one person in HR, one person in the recreational department a weed control person, and a half time position in finance.

Anybody that reads my blog understands how I feel about the additional positions, but that was the council’s decision. Validated by an argument that to find more inefficiency and determine where job duties could be changed or combined, it took those additional people to make that happen, briefly short-term growth that will eventually shrink the work force. Well I still do not buy that argument I have never seen at any level (municipal, provincial or federal) where government has shrunk.

Back to the issue at hand, for a while rumors having been floating around the community about the Recreation Department moving to the MDM, due to the shortage of space in the present office.

First is the lack of space has big an issue as it first appears to be? There is a vacant Foreman’s office downstairs so that position is looked after. The weed control person has worked out of the MDM for the last couple of years as a seasonal position, nothing as changed there. The part time position for finance as been accommodated in the finance department for the last three years. Realistically the additional space is required for two people HR and Recreation.

Can the office be reconfigured to cover off those positions? Council believes so at the last G+P they directed administration to come back with a plan that allows for that. From what I have heard administration is coming back to the next G+P meeting still looking at moving to the MDM. Obviously if this is the case communications are breaking down some where I was at that last meeting Council’s direction was very clear.

More arguments for maintaining all the staff in one building;

Costs I do not care what argument you make there will be a cost, to set up at the MDM is it $10,000, $20,000 I have no idea but there will be a cost, so where does that money come from? Is that dollars that could have gone into reserves.

One stop shopping, presently the taxpayer can go into the office pay a utility bill, check on a development permit, talk to the bylaw office and check out a recreation program, basically take care of all your municipal business in one stop.

Redundancy, present council’s position that they are going to reduce the workforce over time by attrition, due to improved efficiency at all levels. If this proves to be true, the office at the MDM would be redundant in a couple of years anyway due to additional space being created in the Coleman office.

Better utilization of MDM space, prior to leaving council we were told that all the space at the MDM was leased out. To maximize cost recovery at the MDM why would you not rent every foot of space you can, that space that is being saved for the administration at the MDM could be rented out to a group which would lessen the burden on the taxpayers to operate that building.

Efficient utilization of staff, during vacation periods there are times where there is very minimal staff  in the municipal office which occasionally requires staff to assist in other areas than there own. This would become a bigger issue if staff were spread out over various locations.

Supervision of staff, we all recognize that administration receives vacation during those timeframes being in one building if there is an issue and the department head is away there would be other administrators in the office that could deal with that particular issue.

Smaller issues, maintain two sets of office supplies, extra photocopier, and additional costs for people to run back and forth between the two locations. Co-ordination between departments you can have all the technology in the world but there are going to be times when a person needs to talk face to face with another person in a different department.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the hell is that town coming too.
They told us no tax increases. Decoux said he would have notices of motion on the Centre, River Run and something else by May? Its May the 19.
He told us the economic task force would report in ninty days?
Now they are going to be efficient by opening a second municipal office.
Given the opportunity to grow governmeny will.
And now I read the CAO is leaving.

Larry

Anonymous said...

Next you will be telling me that we have to hire a new CAO!

Anonymous said...

Maybe this silly idea will be put to rest. By the latest move Decoux is obviously in control.

From the comments on here Decoux sees no point in the MDM.

Anonymous said...

Dean due to the fact that there is a much larger issue going on right now at the Municipality.
I hope people don't lose site of this important issue.
We do not need to go back wards on the issue of duplication. Remember how silly the debate got when we had two arenas, two community centers.

We do not need two municipal offices.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the previous statement the Mayor is obviously in control. This silly idea will go the way of our spring cleanup after 2011 just a memory.

Anonymous said...

Any councilor that votes to open anther municipal office will never get my vote again.
Its bad enough that they allowed this crazy frenzy of hiring.
I truly believed that we had built a team in the last six months. Maybe just maybe we made a mistake I will be watching the decisions this group makes in the next little bit.

Anne

Anonymous said...

This is was a quote from Mayor Decoux in the Promoter in regards to the staff issue. (3 months ago)

"Mayor Bruce Decoux agreed and said he expects retirements, reassignments and attrition to result in less municipal staff"

One lady in the office just retired, rumour has it that there will be three more in the next twelve months, so reading Mayors Decoux's quote this is a very short term problem. Administration live with what you have for a temporary time.

Unless of course Dean is correct in his arguement that government will just continue to grow.

Larry

Anonymous said...

Quote from Councillor Saindons blog.
"So in answer to your question No we will not need to increase taxes for this years changes in next years budget".

I wonder if this takes into consideration the ongoing cost of running a second municipal office at the MDM.

Mary

Anonymous said...

Given a choice I would have taken spring cleanup over this crazy idea.