Who’s in charge?

I hate to use somebody else’s tag line, the great guest contributor to the Pass Herald S.C Rutigan writes articles under that tag I hope he/she does not mind me stealing it for one week but it’s very relevant to something that happened in the Municipal Office over the last few days.

On Monday afternoon there suddenly appears on the Municipal web site under the employment section a new listing for a Human Resources Administrator, not a mention of this position was made at any council meeting recently or back in the spring during the budget process. Maybe it was all decided In Camera? Even if it was, there should have been a motion in the books supporting the position.

Hopefully somebody would bring it up at one of the meeting yesterday, nothing during the G+P meeting, then last night at the council meeting Councilor Gallant asked the CAO if it was true that we were looking for a Human Resources Administrator he said “yes”. Then councilor Gallant asked if the position was on their Organizational chart to which he replied “No”, then he asked how and why the decision was made to hire for this position. The CAO replied that in light of an on going review that both administration and CUPE felt it was necessary to fill this position, and there were funds available within the budget to pay for it.

Now this raises a number of concerns, council’s must fully understand that administration should be running the day-to-day operations of the municipality, that council cannot be micro managing.

Council goes through a budget process where manpower increases are brought forth by administration and exactly how they are going to be paid for. Council agrees or not, then its administrations job to go out and fill the approved positions.

Right out of left field we have a Human Resources Administrator (Permanent part time) obviously council was not informed unless Councilor Gallant was left out of the information loop similar to Councilor Saje was months prior regarding the issue of Clay Cup being terminated by Medican.

Some will argue that there is money in the budget, let administration proceed and that would be all right if you were filling an operational position at the lower end of the pay scale for the next three months.

Your not this is a “Permanent part time” position this position will go on beyond the end of the year, is anybody fooled by the terminology of part time. The pretense that this position will be part time is being used as the wedge to get this position in the door. Look at the qualifications they are looking for on this position does anybody believe that a highly experienced professional is going to take on this position for “20” hours a week? I do not think so.

Come budget time the need for this bureaucratic position (just like any other) is going to be strongly justified by administration. This is going to be another $100,000 a year job that will be funded by either increasing revenue’s, or taking money from another area in the budget. Somebody made the comment to me a while back that we have more administrators than public works operators. This might be a slight exaggeration, if we keep going at this pace by the end of the next council’s term we may have more administrators than CUPE members.

The morale of this story? It’s very obvious to me now, “Who’s In Charge”         

Note: Check out the article on the new entrance signs on the Pass Promoter site at the following address: 

http://www.crowsnestpasspromoter.com/2013/08/21/municipal-entrance-signs-underway