Victoria explores ways to cut costs
Close Crystal Pool, impose tourism tax and eliminate heritage grants, report says; mayor cool to proposals
Victoria should consider closing Crystal Pool, eliminating heritage grants and developing a tourism tax to cover the cost of hanging flower baskets and help bring down costs, says a Maximus Canada review of city services and operations.
The $75,000 review, released Friday, says that since the city is spending the same or less than similar cities for services, it should look at a variety of measures, including cuts in discretionary spending, to bring costs in line with expected revenues.
But Mayor Dean Fortin said many of the recommendations, such as closing the pool, do not fit with community values. Heritage grants are considered by council as important to community revitalization.
“They’ve put forward some ideas that, frankly, council has considered in the past,” Fortin said. “Part of having an independent third party make suggestions is that there’s no local evaluation of impact on the community or community values, and that’s part of what council’s job is.
“So hanging baskets are important. Heritage grants are important. Crystal Pool is very important. These are decisions that council has made.”
Among the report’s recommendations:
• Close Crystal Pool. With only 4,750 users a year, the pool is serving a small percentage of the city’s residents and is subsidized to the tune of $1.2 million a year. “Given the age of the pool and its condition, these costs will increase significantly going forward,” the report says. • Eliminate or reduce heritage grants. “Given the need to reduce costs, the city cannot afford to take general fund dollars and transfer those funds to subsidize private-sector development efforts.” • Eliminate, reduce or seek provincial funding for the protocol and twin-cities program. “While these services were requested by the community, the benefits to the city are not clear.” • Investigate a tourism tax to cover the cost of hanging baskets and annual plant beds, and the subsidy for the Conference Centre. • Automate city parkades — “one of the more promising opportunities to pursue.” • Continue with the creation of a storm-water utility. This will remove about $1.2 million a year in general fund costs and make the storm-drain program self-sufficient. • Assess the feasibility of creating other revenue sources for the Conference Centre, such as naming rights or reallocating a portion of the hotel tax. • Eliminate the Sustainability Department and integrate its functions into existing departments.
The consultant notes the city council’s goal of limiting property tax hikes to 3.25 per cent a year over three years will require reducing spending about $3 million a year for several years.
The report says the city’s operations are lean (with 53 managers out of 779 fulltime equivalents) and is providing services at costs similar to or lower than Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna and Vancouver.
“As labour is the largest portion of the cost of services provided by the city, it is difficult to reduce costs without also reducing staff. There are two methods to reduce labour costs: attrition or a planned reduction in the labour force,” the report says.
“The city actively manages vacancies when staff members leave, and this helps lower staff costs over time, but it is not the most efficient cost-saving method because the city must wait for staff to leave before it realizes any savings.”
The report also recommended a number of organizational changes, that the city is moving toward.
Victoria is undergoing an organizational shakeup based on a consultant’s review of service delivery.
But how many jobs will be affected remains to be seen.
“We have tried to minimize impacts to people as much as possible and remain committed to treating all staff with fairness and the utmost respect,” outgoing City Manager Gail Stephens said in an email sent to city staff Thursday.
“We have tremendously talented staff at the city and are well-served by you, a collective team of hardworking professionals that take great pride in serving the capital city,” Stephens said. “We are faced with challenging times and it is clear how hard the organization is working to respond to emerging issues and competing priorities. I appreciate your patience and professionalism through this process; I know it has not been easy.”
At first blush, it appears four management positions (two at the Victoria Conference Centre, one in parks and one in legislative and regulatory services) could be lost in the shuffle. But people in those jobs might land in a number of new positions being created.
Mayor Dean Fortin said it will be some months before the exact impact on staffing numbers is known.
“We’ve reorganized to create effectiveness. We’re down some [positions] in some areas. We’re up some in the other and we’re just going to have to play this out over the next two or three months,” Fortin said.
Begun in October at a cost of $75,000, the “service delivery and organizational review” was conducted by Maximus Canada. It was supposed to be finished months ago, in time for council’s budget deliberations, but was delayed, because the consultant was said to be having difficulty in finding accurate comparable costs with other municipalities.
Delivered mid-June, the report has been subject to six weeks of closed-door scrutiny by senior staff and council members.
Stephens’s email said the report’s structural recommendations were considered at length, but some were not incorporated in the restructure.
“Although the consultant recommended changes to service delivery, many of which have already been considered by council, the consultant’s recommendations do not consider community input or values and service-level changes are always at council’s discretion,” she said.
The Maximus review concluded that compared to similar-size municipalities, “Victoria is exceptionally lean and provides services at the same or less cost than its peers.”
The reorganization will see several positions and divisions “dissolved” as various departments are consolidated or realigned. Positions are to be eliminated at the Conference Centre, parks planning and in administration and protocol. The vacant position of assistant director of transportation and parking will not be filled.
CUPE Local 50 president John Burrows said it was unclear whether the city was reducing management staff or simply shuffling the deck.
The city also will create a new “return-to-work” position in the human resources department to increase productivity and reduce absences due to WorkSafe claims and illness.
Burrows was dismissive of the new position.
“I don’t know what a manager’s going to do but come in and brow-beat employees to come back to work when they’re sick, I guess,” Burrows said.
“We’re actually below the national public service average now [for sick time]. What do they want?” he said. “To now hire another manager in a department that’s overflowing with exempt staff as it is, is nuts.”
Meanwhile, Conference Centre general manager Jocelyn Jenkyns has been appointed acting city manager effect Aug. 6. The city has hired Pinton Forrest & Madden to assist in its search for a replacement for Stephens.