City of Penticton drops axe on six more employees

Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News Published: April 29, 2010 10:00 AM

Penticton City Council has voted to eliminate the positions of six more city staff. Mayor Dan Ashton announced Wednesday afternoon that the city had let go of one manager and five unionized staff workers as a result of recommendations made by the city's senior management team based off of a $70,000 six-month core services review of all city operations. With the terminations announced Wednesday, council has now cut 10 positions out of the city's operating budget as a result of the core services review, including the positions of three senior managers who were released March 2 and one purchasing manager who retired, none of whom will be replaced. Overall, said Ashton, the job reductions will result in an annual saving to the city of about $700,000.

"This council is committed to getting the City of Penticton on a sustainable financial path," said Ashton. "This is an important step in that direction but more is needed to meet the challenges we will face in 2012 and beyond." Ashton said that council will be instituting a wage freeze for all non-unionized employees and will be asking the city's unionized employees to agree to a new contract in their upcoming labour negotiations that will allow council "to hold the line on costs." With the actions, Ashton said he is confident that council will be able to balance the 2011 annual budget with a similar increase in civic taxes as implemented this year — a 2.5 per cent increase in tax, some user fee increases and a $141,000 dip into the electric utility's profits helped balance the budget this year.

"Truly significant accomplishments given the expense we incurred having a world class events centre and the significant costs of building a state-of-the-art pool and recreation facility," said Ashton. "In 2012, we will need to find an additional $400,000 in revenues and savings to balance the budget, and that still does not take into account increasing wages for city employees, the potential for cost increases which are outside our control for protective services and inflationary pressures. "The real work begins now on the next phase of implementing the core services review recommendations (of) re-examining what we do, how we do it and how we can do it more cost effectively ... At the council level, we will be turning our focus to the more strategic issue of how we are going to the city's revenue base going forward."