City council and senior managers to discuss core review

Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News Published: March 11, 2010 6:00 PM

This Monday city council and senior city managers will meet privately to discuss the core services review for the first time since council received the $70,000-report March 1, according to Mayor Dan Ashton. Since then, council acted on the most pressing of the 61 private recommendations in the review, terminating the employment of the director of corporate services Jack Kler, general manager of the city’s electric utility Terry Andreychuk and director of human resources Dwayne Burdeniuk, before releasing a less-detailed, recommendation-less version of the report to the public Friday. The less-detailed public version was hardly sparse, however, and so with assertions ranging from: “the growth in operating spending is unsustainable” to “Penticton has three to six more management positions than required” to “there is a significant discrepancy between the cost of delivering these services through the public sector and the private sector,” the review has triggered an avalanche of employee anxiety throughout the city as staff and managers alike ponder whether they will soon loose their jobs.

“I think Kyle (Stamm) has done a very good job,” said Ashton, of the lead consultant from Helios Group, the Vancouver based company that researched and prepared the core services review. “Kyle went in and he conducted thousands of interviews with employees, with management, with people from the community and with council. And he made his recommendations based on that. “What happened was that when council got a hold of the document, we saw that there were some initial changes that had to be made in order to initiate a change of culture at the City of Penticton in regards to productivity, efficiency and customer service. “Because of that, there was a decision that had to be made regarding the senior staff, which to me is always time sensitive, and when these things come forward it is only fair to everybody that they are acted on immediately and that is what we did.”

Ashton confirmed that beyond the three managers that were let go, no other city employees were mentioned specifically in the core services review’s 61 recommendations, although, he said, there are comments regarding specific departments at the city. “What we have done, after we acted on that initial recommendation is we have given the full report to the city’s (remaining) senior management team and I know that Dennis (Back, city CAO) has been working very hard with senior managers to come up with a game plan, looking at the recommendations that were brought forward,” said Ashton, noting that due to the detail, scope and game-changing nature of the report both council and senior management have required some time to digest its ramifications. “What we have been saying is that for years the City of Penticton hasn’t had a hard look at how the city conducts its business and now that is what we have challenged staff and challenged the management to do.” Ashton said he look forward to hearing management’s input on a number of the review’s findings.

For instance, although the review seem to point to a disproportionate number of workers at the city compared to similar municipalities, Ashton said that did not necessarily mean the City of Penticton employs too many people as there may be extenuating circumstances for why. For example, Ashton said, because Penticton has a higher population of seniors than other communities, perhaps the city requires more staffing at facilities such as the swimming pool or community centre.Contacted Thursday evening, Back confirmed that he would be presenting an initial report to council Monday in order to attain their input on which direction the city should be moving in light of the review. “(The management team) are aware of the stress and uncertainty the review has created for our employees and we are working diligently to create an implementation plan based on it’s recommendations as soon as possible,” said Back.