Many municipal staff could work from home all summer

Many of Ottawa’s municipal public servants who have been working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic should get cosy in their makeshift offices.

During a recent media conference, city manager Steve Kanellakos said council would receive information about the workforce at the June 10 meeting, but indicated that city office buildings would be quiet for several more months.

Kanellakos said some employees would be returning to their workplaces as the city opened more services, but he said the current thinking was “most of our administrative buildings will not be occupied for the summer.”

“It could be longer,” Kanellakos said Wednesday. “We’re still finalizing that assessment over the next four or five days and we’ll be briefing the mayor and briefing council.”

According to the city’s human resources director, Elizabeth Marland, the COVID-19 workfrom-home program “allows approximately 90 per cent of administrative and office employees to work productively from home.”

Kanellakos has said one of the city’s priorities in the recovery plan is ensuring the safety and well-being of municipal workers if they return to their workplaces during the pandemic. The city, like other organizations that have office buildings, is assessing workplace operations under physical-distancing requirements.

The city employs about 20,000 people, though thousands of staffers, like transit operators and police officers, aren’t working at desks in municipal office buildings.

About 4,280 part-time employees are on unpaid leaves of absence until the city can resume recreation, cultural and facility services and work at the Ottawa Public Library. The city’s summer student program was also put on hold.

Meanwhile, the governance of the municipality is slowly ramping up to speed.

City staff continue to produce reports for council approval, although management may need to reconsider priorities for the term since staff focus has been redirected to the pandemic. At first only reports with legislative requirements were going through the committee and council approval processes, but some of the regular reporting is returning to the agenda.

Much of the political governance, along with public participation, will resume next week as video conferencing for meetings rolls out to more committees.

Until now, only the planning committee has regularly met by publicly accessible, livestreamed video meetings. A big test came during a joint meeting of the planning and agriculture and rural affairs committee, which heard from nearly 100 people by video links on issue of expanding the urban boundary and the intensification goal.

Starting Monday, the transit commission and other committees will use video conferencing for meetings and to hear deputations from the public.

Council meetings, meanwhile, are still being held by teleconference. jwilling@postmedia.com twitter.com/JonathanWilling

It could be longer. We’re still finalizing that assessment …

STEVE KaNELLAKOS