By Pepper Parr
November 8th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
Direct the City Manager to bring forward a rank order (Top Priority/High Priority/Medium Priority/Other Priority) for all FTEs (Full time Employee) included in the 2024 financial needs and multi-year forecast that are supported through the tax rate for the November 7 Budget Council Workshop meeting.
The following are the graphics that came out of that Direction.
Getting the priority documents into the hands of Council the following days was the result of a superb effort on the part of several Staff members led by Executive Director Shelia Jones who ran a very tight meeting.
As each department head explained to Council what their staffing needs there had to be some way to prioritize the jobs. Some were needed immadiately, other weren’t needed this year but the department heads were making it clear that they would be needed next year.
These were the jobs that staff saw as essential. They were included in the Budget the Mayor put forward.
These were the next level of prioritization. Note that the Dire Department is expected to get by with two of the four they require.
Third level of prioritization. Yellow indicates those that are in the current Mayor’s budget.
These were seen as necessary by staff but not seen as necessary by Council – usually because funding wasn’t available.
This chart shows how the city recognized what was needed and when they could not be funded they were carried forward to a following year. All this staff expansion is the result of the 29,000 housing units that are going to be built in the next decade.
This mayor and council decided they would transform city hall into the vision they had for how it should run. The problem with this is that the undertaking is massively expensive and it ought to have been something run past taxpayers. It wasn’t. This mayor and council decided, they were elected, they were going to run things the way they saw fit and that they didn’t need permission from us to do anything. Its why even with the things where we are allowed to have a say, that we’re kept on such a short leash. Literally, they’ve restriction of delegate’s time is like a dog being yanked back on a choke chain.
But who the hell is Marianne Meed Ward to decide she’s going to completely revamp city hall and be damned with the taxpayer if they don’t like how much it costs?
Not only that Wendy the city reneged on fixing safety issues outside city hall that can lead to falls AND were using funds allocated by province for rural downtowns when caught short for funding to fix up outside. Only got caught because over ran initial budget. Think they ended up using some rural dowtown funds on rainbow crossings. Keep up the onslaught Wendy, looking forward to seeing how you handle MMW try and stop you saying whatever your delegation is, about as that was her tactic with us and still is at times. However suggest keep within 10min and 5min Comm and Council timeliness as u don’t want to be seen as breaking the rules others ha e to abide by.
DEOO. People are very upset about all the new hires and rightfully so imo. 200 new people when the Bank of Canada rate has increased 10x since March 2022 and people are struggling to not lose their homes bc their 500-750K mortgage just went from 2% to 6.5-7.5%. I know people who have 9K mortgages terrified about this property tax increase. The Bank of Canada and CHMC currently considering their positions because of the anticipated impact of interest rates on the flux of mortgages expected to come due next year.
But here’s the Burlington Mayor and council who don’t miss a beat in telling you how their costs are all increased because of inflation and commodity costs fluctuating because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Yet when it comes to them having the foggiest about the impact of them hiring 200 new people on the lives of Burlington citizens, they are either too daft to get it or they are just that cold hearted and lacking in all compassion and empathy. I truly am not sure which. Given the ease with which they make false statements to the press, I have to think the latter.
The DEOO isn’t new. This mayor and council came up with it 3-4 yrs ago. 2019 I think. It’s probably what they spent much of covid on. With months long delays in things and unable to get any service for months, they certainly didn’t seem like they were working very hard. The rest of the world was working. Yet city hall didn’t start answering phones again until, late 2022 I think? Uncalled for. And now council has decided it will by a completely hybrid work system. Taxpayers didn’t agree to that, just like they didn’t ever agree to implementing the DEOO
But MMW and council have made it clear that they don’t care what taxpayers think or want.
Maybe someone can explain to me how, as a customer, I’m getting this great customer experience they’re claiming, when there aren’t people at city hall to meet me, in person, when its convenient to me? Which means if I have time to go in on the fly, someone in that dept, is there right then. Not make an appointment for when its convenient to *them*. That’s not customer service. Further, what is the point of spending 6.5m on renos for it to be half empty, all the time? Or 1.32 m of taxpayer $ on Civic Garden?
Oh wait, I forgot. Can we get a pic for the mag for the next edition of Best Place in Canada to Live?
As a taxpayer, I have quite a bit of animosity towards all the money being wasted so MMW and council can have this grandiose illusion of what city hall at destination Burlington should look like.
Just be sure to tell them to keep the cameras off the buses. They’re pretty being so shiny and new but as there’s no one in them, people will think its a ghost town they’re coming to. Of course it will be bc nobody can afford to live here anymore. They all went bankrupt from the 2000 city hall employees they had to support
Here is my rant:
A few of the positions are intuitively needed by their descriptions. Has the City ever recently undertaken steps to review, flow chart, modernize job descriptions and possibly amalgamate positions to cap the total employee count. Not a big fan of consultants generally despite hiring them extensively however some management consultants are worth their value. I suggest a cap on total employee numbers. Many organizations I have worked with had to do this multiple times or worse.
Proceed with Top Priority only, re evaluate semi annually.
A new department in 2024? Why?
Scrap the onerous tree by law, associated staff and in my opinion is an infringement on my rights as a residential property owner. Use some of those funds to properly prune and keep hydro lines from falling! Clear invasive species and replace and encourage homeowners as well to plant native plants.
Increase borrowing so that needed infrastructure for massive condo’s towers are paid for by those who are supposedly coming.
Borrow as needed to keep tax increases 1% below inflation. Apparently we borrow to a level of half of what we can. While laudable, these times call for a different approach.