County finished thinning its ranks; now looks forwar

The third and final phase of staff restructuring in the municipality is now complete. In total, 44 positions have now been eliminated in this process and 29 new ones created, yielding a savings of about $1.5 million in salaries per year.

The cuts started at the top with Phase one tabled in the spring. Phase two took the knife to managerial ranks in the summer. Phase three, delivered last week, saw 10 positions eliminated and new positions created.

So is this it?

“No,” said Merlin Dewing, the County’s chief administrative officer and architect of the operational restructuring. “It is just the beginning. We have a new organization, a new philosophy.”

Now, Dewing explains, staff must work to deliver the savings and efficiencies that this new structure is designed to extract.

“I am quite confident these savings will be realized provided someone is at the helm, watching over it. I expect to see reductions in our budget lines going forward.”

He suggests savings to operations should exceed the nominal savings in salaries due to greater efficiency and expanded capacity that he anticipates will result from the restructuring and subsequent professional development he is extending to staff.

But he is quick to add that savings from operations may not translate into lower taxes for ratepayers. Dewing maintains that the County has lived largely from hand to mouth over the past decade, using revenue to pay bills rather than put some away to fund future repairs or replacement of its infrastructure, buildings and facilities.

Dewing cautions that there remain risks that the savings won’t be realized. He says council must get on board with structural changes to processes. If not, much of the work done so far could unravel.

He points to significant savings he expects to be derived by reducing the ranks among administration support. But he says those cuts were predicated on streamlining decision-making and operations. If council balks at making these changes, it may be necessary to go back and hire more administrative support again.

“The things within our control we will control,” said Dewing. “The things outside our control we will try and manage.”

Deepest cuts

Perhaps the most profound and visible changes in the County’s operations are occuring in the ranks of the former Recreation, Parks and Culture department, where four management and three admin support positions have been eliminated. Just two new positions—a manager of community centres and event marketing as well as a facilities manager—have been created in their place, though some of responsibilities of the former positions will now flow to other staff in the organization.

Is there a risk of spreading staff too thin? “If we find a fundamental flaw in the thinking and we can’t do what we hoped to do, I am hopeful our organization is now flexible enough to absorb those and react to them. We are not going to be so rigid to make something work that obviously doesn’t,” said Dewing.