1. VACANT
POSITIONS
POSTES VACANTS
That Council approve:
1.
That if a position in the City remains open (vacant) for a period of
two years from the date that it last had an Owner that the position be declared
as surplus to the Corporation’s needs and that the budget allocation and FTE(s)
associated with the position be removed from the corresponding departmental
budget; and
2.
That should there be a substantive reason that
the position remain open that a staff report be brought before the appropriate
Standing Committee for their consideration with a reason why the position is
still needed and with a plan that will ensure that the position is filled.
RecommandationS MODIFIÉES DU Comité
Que le Conseil approuve :
1. Qu’un
poste qui demeure ouvert (vacant) pour une période de deux ans soit déclaré
inutile pour les besoins de la Ville, et que les allocations budgétaires et les
ÉTP associés à ce poste soient retirés du budget du service correspondant;
2. Qu’un
poste que l’on estime devoir garder ouvert pour une raison importante fasse
l’objet d’un rapport du personnel, présenté au comité permanent approprié,
faisant état des raisons pour lesquelles ce poste est nécessaire et accompagné
d’un plan visant à le pourvoir.
Documentation
1. Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee’s report dated 9 February 2010 (ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0011).
2. Extract of Draft Minute, 2 March 2010.
Report to / Rapport au :
Corporate Services and
Economic Development Committee
and Council / et
Conseil
9 February 2010 / le 9 février 2010
Submitted by / Soumis par : City Council /
Conseil municipal
City Wide / À l'échelle de la Ville |
Ref N°: ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0011 |
SUBJECT: VACANT
POSITIONS
OBJET : POSTES VACANTS
That Corporate Services and Economic Development
Committee consider the following motion, for recommendation to Council:
1.
That if a position in the City remains open (vacant) for a period of
two years from the date that it last had an Owner that the position be declared
as surplus to the Corporation’s needs and that the budget allocation and FTE(s)
associated with the position be removed from the corresponding departmental
budget; and
2.
That should there be a substantive reason that
the position remain open that a staff report be brought before the appropriate
Standing Committee for their consideration with a reason why the position is
still needed and with a plan that will ensure that the position is filled.
Que le Comité des
services organisationnels et du développement économique recommande au Conseil
d’examiner la motion suivante aux fins de recommandation au Conseil :
1. Qu’un poste qui demeure
ouvert (vacant) pour une période de deux ans soit déclaré inutile pour les
besoins de la Ville, et que les allocations budgétaires et les ÉTP associés à
ce poste soient retirés du budget du service correspondant;
2. Qu’un
poste que l’on estime devoir garder ouvert pour une raison importante fasse l’objet
d’un rapport du personnel, présenté au comité permanent approprié, faisant état
des raisons pour lesquelles ce poste est nécessaire et accompagné d’un plan
visant à le pourvoir.
That Motion No. 82/27 be
referred to Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee
MOTION NO. 82/27
WHEREAS the City of Ottawa Organizational Chart is
produced from the HR databases (SAP-HR) and is refreshed on a daily basis,
meaning the chart is always up-to-date as a result of the Request for Personnel
Action (RPA) and Organizational and Positional Change Approval (OPCA) process;
and
WHEREAS the City Managers have a wide array of SAP-HR
reporting available to them, specifically, the Position Incumbent Report, which
provides information on the status of positions (whether they are permanent,
temporary, casual, vacant, filled on a temporary or acting basis), as well as
identifies the owners and holders, their union affiliation and pay grade; and
WHEREAS Full Time Equivalents (FTE) are used for
budgetary purposes to quantify the number of FTE positions approved by Council
and one FTE may equal the following hours per year: 1,820 (35 hours/week),
1,950 (37.5 hours/week), 2,080 (40 hours/week) or 2184 (42 hours/week),
depending on the collective agreement associated with the work. The FTE count
is used to quantify annualized hours for positions to provide for a standard,
universally accepted means of comparability and is the accepted basis for
comparison with other organizations and municipalities; and
WHEREAS positions are created from FTEs based on
operational requirements to deliver services. Positions are categorized as
full-time, part-time, salary, wage, casual and student and are based on the
type of staff required to the work; and
WHEREAS temporary positions are established to meet
short-term operational needs, and they are funded from multiple sources,
including one-time funding, capital projects, federal or provincial funding, or
gapping from vacant positions; and
WHEREAS a true vacancy is defined as a position not
having an owner and not filled by anyone placed temporarily or acting in the
position and no staffing action against them.
This excludes seasonal and summer student positions, and a position shown as open until a permanent staffing action
is completed within SAP and varies from one position to another. Information on
how long a position is vacant can be generated from SAP and is reviewed
quarterly by management. Options and strategies for positions that lay vacant
for extended periods of time are reviewed by the departments on a regular basis
in order to meet service delivery requirements; and
WHEREAS acting or temporary assignments are governed
by the various Collective Agreements and the lengths of term vary from six to
eighteen months;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that if a position in the
City remains open (vacant) for a period of two years from the date that it last
had an Owner that the position be declared as surplus to the Corporation’s
needs and that the budget allocation and FTE(s) associated with the position be
removed from the corresponding departmental budget; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that should there be a
substantive reason that the position remain open that a staff report be brought
before the appropriate Standing Committee for their consideration with a reason
why the position is still needed and with a plan that will ensure that the
position is filled.
Human Resources
It is suggested that
Managers with vacancies remaining for a period of two years, report back
to Standing Committees with justification as to why the position is still
needed and staffing action plan.
There are currently 40 positions that meet the two year threshold. Some of these positions are intentionally held vacant in order to facilitate the progression of employees through apprenticeship and training programs as they advance through levels of proficiency. HR will work with Managers to initiate a process to review any positions that have been vacant for more than 24 months and report back to respective Standing Committee by the end of second quarter 2010. On a go forward basis, the Annual FTE Analysis Report that is submitted as part of the budget submission in Q4 will include a status update on any positions that fall within this category.
CONSULTATION
This item will be advertised in the local dailies as part of the Public Meeting Advertisement on Friday preceding the Community and Protective Services Committee Meeting.
N/A
There are
no legal/risk management implications associated with the recommendations
contained in the report, provided that any collective agreement obligations are
respected, such as the minimum staffing obligations contained in the Ottawa
Professional Fire Fighters’ Association collective agreement.
FINANCIAL
IMPLICATIONS
Removal
of an FTE and budget allocation would result in a compensation budget savings.
The identified savings would be accounted for in the annual budget process
whereby annual budgets are adjusted for permanent changes identified throughout
the year.
Staff to take appropriate action as directed by the Committee and Council.
1. VACANT POSITIONS
POSTES VACANTS
ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0011 CITY WIDE / À L'ECHELLE DE LA VILLE
Mr. Clarence Dungey spoke on items 1 and 2 concurrently (Vacant
Positions – ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0011 and Vacant Positions Due to Retirement –
ACS2010-CMR-CSE-0012). He reported
having attended a number of election-related meetings recently and talking to
people about perception. He felt that
because the general public did not have all the facts, people were left with a
flawed understanding. Therefore, on the
question of perception, he recommended that before proceeding with the subject
at hand, Council should consider what the perception was, amongst the general
public and amongst City staff. He
suggested considering a summit-type meeting of all the City’s managers because
he believed there were questions that needed asking and answers to be
heard. He posited that, good or bad,
there were all kinds of reasons why people retired and why vacancies were not
filled. However, he maintained these
positions all had one thing in common; impact on services. In closing, he submitted that Councillors
may, inadvertently, not have all the information needed and that they should
dig deeper to find out why vacancies were not being filled.
Councillor Wilkinson liked the presenter’s
recommendation about meeting with people.
However, she did not believe these items needed to be held up in order
for it to happen.
At this juncture, Councillor Wilkinson
introduced a motion calling on Committee to “approve” the report
recommendations.
Councillor Deans asked for a staff comment on
the recommendations: whether staff
supported moving forward in this way and what was magical about two years as
opposed to one year or 18 months. Ms.
Elizabeth Marland, Manager of Compensation and Benefits and Acting Director of
Human Resources, stated there was nothing magical about the two year timeframe,
noting staff could report on positions that had been vacant for one year or
more, or for 18 months or more, depending on what Council felt was
appropriate. However, in light of the
current recommendations, staff had done the analysis for two years. In terms of whether staff supported moving
forward with the recommendations, she felt there were good reasons for
positions to have remained vacant and advised that Human Resources would be
working with managers to address the issue.
When asked for examples of good reasons for
positions to have remained vacant, Ms. Marland advised some positions had been
held open because of on-going restructuring.
In some cases, funding for the permanent positions was being used to
fill temporary requirements. In other
cases, positions were held for training purposes, so the funding was used to
bring employees into the organization and have them trained to fill the vacant
positions.
Councillor Deans felt training was a valid
reason, whereas she felt using the money for other purposes was not a good
reason. She maintained that these “other
purposes” should be reflected in the budget rather than taking the funds from
phantom positions. Ms. Marland explained
that there may be temporary requirements to fill operational needs. However, she advised there were very few such
positions.
As an example, Mr. Steve Kanellakos, Deputy
City Manager of Community and Protective Services, referenced a memorandum of
agreement with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) to hold open a
number of maintenance positions in Public Works because of change over between
seasonal operations. He advised that
management was supportive of the motion.
He felt it was good practice, from an accountability perspective, to
review vacant positions from time to time.
However, he added that there were gapping provisions built into the
budget and he advised that even through positions may be held vacant, the money
was not sitting there because any surpluses at the end of the year were
contributed to the budget, which had already been reduced for the forecast in
terms of the number of positions that would remain vacant in the
organization. Therefore, Financial
Services would withdraw those dollars, on a monthly basis, from the various
departments, so these funds would not be accessible to go towards a vacancy
factor, which was built into the budget.
He reminded Committee that the City budget was reduced by 1.6% of
compensation on an annual basis and adjusted, depending on the actual
experience, to reflect the number of vacant positions in the organization.
Ms. Simulik confirmed that there was a 1.6%
vacancy allowance built into every department’s budget and that she had another
1%, which she assigned during the year.
Therefore there was 2.6% of the compensation budget, which was actually
removed right off the top to account for vacancies or turn-over throughout the
year. She acknowledged that there were
40 positions that had been vacant for two years but she advised that the City
had not been taxing for these because the gapping reduces the tax requirement. The cost of those 40 positions would have
been accounted for in the gapping.
Responding to a question from Councillor Deans
with respect to the financial impact of the 40 positions referenced in the
report, Ms. Marland indicated she did not have a percentage figure on
hand. However, she noted that there were
approximately 15,000 positions in the City so these positions would be 40 out
of 15,000. Ms. Simulik advised that the
average compensation costs, including benefits, was somewhere around $60,000
per position. Therefore the impact would
be about $240,000 out of a total compensation budget of $1 billion, so less
than 1%.
Noting the gapping provisions that were built
into the budget, Chair Jellett wondered if approving the recommendations would amount
to double counting these 40 positions.
Ms. Simulik clarified that it would not be a double count. However, she advised that it would put the
City at risk of having a deficit in its compensation amount because gapping
would still be built into the budget and, if departments did not have the
vacancies, the result would be a deficit in the compensation line.
Responding to a question from Councillor
Desroches with respect to how the budget was built in terms of human resource
needs, Ms. Simulik explained that temporary positions were added into the
gross, budgeted for at mid-range, and then the total compensation was reduced
by 1.6% within the departments and another 1% for non-departmental. This was done to account for the fact that
not all positions were filled for the entire year.
Councillor Desroches wondered why the City
would not simply ask managers to identify what they needed, in terms of human
resources and knowing that some positions would be in transition, to do what
they were supposed to do and then submit that instead of some phantom
numbers. Ms. Simulik indicated she would
not refer to them as phantom numbers, noting this was the City’s historical
trends in terms of looking at what the gross compensation was and what actually
ended up being spent at the end of the year.
She explained that management recognized there would be turn-over in the
organization and that this would traditionally account for about 2.6% of the
total compensation budget. She submitted
that Council could ask a particular manager precisely what he or she needed,
but managers would not know which employees might decide to leave and they
would probably come up with the exact same number as was obtained through the
gapping provision.
Councillor Desroches maintained that the 40 positions referenced in the
current report had been vacant for two years.
Therefore, he was included to support the recommendation because he felt
that was a sufficient amount of time to indicate these positions were not
critical. However, he recognized that
this was a dynamic organization; that people were coming and going all the time
and some re-organization was ongoing. He
wondered how difficult it would be for managers to create new positions, if
needed. From a budgetary perspective,
Ms. Simulik advised that if Council eliminated these positions, there would be
no ability to create a new position until another FTE was approved by Council
in the next budget cycle. However,
assuming it was the same position as existed before, it was not that difficult
because it existed; there was a job description and it had been through the
classification process. She deferred to
Ms. Marland to discuss timelines for same.
Ms. Marland advised that creating a new position would take
approximately one to two months. The
manager would have to identify the needs and a job description would need to be
developed. This would then go through a
joint management union rating team.
Therefore, it was normally a one to two month timeframe.
Mr. Kanellakos re-iterated that staff was supportive of the report
recommendations; that positions having been vacant for two years be declared
surplus and that managers have to bring back the requirement in order to have
the position. He felt it was an
important accountability tool. He noted
these were 40 positions out of 15,000 and that they were spread across almost
every department. He submitted it would
not be a burden and advised that management would monitor it and, if there was
a valid need, staff would be back before Committee and Council to justify the
position(s).
Councillor Desroches agreed with Mr. Kanellakos’ comments and advised
that he would be supporting the recommendations.
In response to a question from Councillor Qadri with respect to the
positions held vacant for training purposes, Ms. Marland explained that when
someone was brought in for training, during their training period, they were
working at a lower level and not actually occupying the vacant position, though
their compensation during training would be funded by that vacant
position. Once they were fully
qualified, they would then move into the position on a full-time basis.
Councillor Qadri wondered if some temporary or casual positions could be
used for this purpose instead of maintaining these vacant positions. Ms. Marland explained that during the
training period, the City actually created temporary positions for these
employees, but that these were funded from the full-time vacancy.
Councillor Qadri inquired as to how positions were funded when their
work related to a specific capital project.
Ms. Simulik explained the process followed was that the City charged to
the capital account whatever labour costs were involved in the delivery of that
capital project. She advised the actual
salary was budgeted for within the operating branch and then was recovered from
capital. As an example, she indicated
that if an individual was not working on a capital project, their compensation
would be 100% funded from the operating budget.
If that individual started working on a capital projects, then a portion
of their salary would be recovered from the capital budget so there would be a
net savings in the operating budget for that particular position. She noted this was fairly rare because
management knew who working in capital and these positions were set-up this way
at the beginning of the year. It was
fairly unusual to have someone who did not work in capital suddenly be assigned
to work on a capital project.
Councillor Qadri wondered what happened to such surpluses at the end of
the year. Ms. Simulik advised that any
such surpluses would become part of the total City position and would go to
offset other deficits within the City or be contributed to the City-wide
reserve.
Responding to a follow-up question from the Councillor with respect to
the positions associated with the infrastructure projects that came in during
the previous year, Ms. Simulik advised that the majority of the positions in
Mr. Newell’s shop were recovered from capital.
Councillor Bloess wondered if it would have been more appropriate to
deal with this issue at budget time in order to account for any savings in this
year’s budget. Ms. Simulik acknowledged
that would have been better timing if Council wanted to eliminate the positions
and have a budget savings. However, she
believed the departments would have been asking Council to reduce their gapping
provisions accordingly so there most likely would not have been a net savings.
Based on the information received so far,
Councillor Bloess believed management staff was already managing this
issue. Therefore, he wondered what the
actual savings would be, if Committee and Council approved this now. Mr. Kanellakos advised it was unlikely that
there would be any savings. He submitted
the true intent of the recommendations related to more accountability with
respect to positions left vacant for a length of time and he re-iterated
management’s support for this.
Councillor Bloess agreed with Mr. Kanellakos’
assessment in terms of the recommendations’ intent. However, he believed there was a perception
that the City had been over-charging taxpayers for these positions. He re-iterated his belief that Council should
have dealt with this at budget time.
Responding to a question from Councillor
Monette with respect to any future impact of this decision, Mr. Kanellakos
submitted that management would have to be careful of not double-counting for
any of these positions. Otherwise, he
felt the issue would be that, if a manager believed, after reviewing a position
that had been vacant for two years, that the position should be cut, then the
manager would make this decision in the best interest of the budget and of
balancing out the workload. On the other
hand, if a manager felt the position was really needed, then he or she should
justify it.
Councillor Wilkinson expressed a preference for
a “clean” budget so that if money was needed for interns or things of that
nature, it should be a corporate budget rather than using another position to
pay for it. Therefore, she recommended
that Committee and Council approve the current report.
Councillor Brooks recalled that several years
prior, he had brought a similar motion, which resulted in a $10M savings. He wondered what the difference was between
now and then. Ms. Simulik indicated she
did not remember the substance of the Councillor’s previous motion.
Councillor Brooks explained that his advisory
finance committee had gone through, looked at the numbers and found there was a
discrepancy between the number of employees and the revenue on the other
side. He believed it had related to
approximately 800 vacancies, with about 100 under negotiation to be
filled. As a result, the balance of
these positions were closed off, for a saving of $10M. Mr. Kanellakos seemed to recall the outcome
of the motion was that the vacancy factor was increased and the money was
harder lined in terms of the amount by which the compensation budget was
reduced to account for the number of vacancies.
He believed this related to the City Treasurer’s references to 1.6% and
an additional 1% of the compensation budget coming off the bottom line to
account for turn-over in the organization.
Responding to a question from Councillor
El-Chantiry with respect to positions held open for training purposes, Mr.
Kanellakos believed about 15 of the 40 positions fell into this category in
terms of training for advance care paramedics, building officials and so
on. He explained that the City was
bringing staff in at a lower level of pay, training them and trying to get them
into the job because of an inability to recruit at the higher level due to
market conditions in these fields. He
suggested that the senior management team would bring back a report to identify
these positions and he hoped Committee and Council would support this. He submitted that Council would then know
that the identified positions, out of the 40 referenced in the current report,
were for this specific purpose. He
re-iterated his belief that it would not be a burden for the respective
directors to review the positions, make a decision as to whether to cut them or
to come back to Committee and Council to ask that they be retained.
In response to follow-up questions from the
Councillor, Mr. Kanellakos confirmed that this particular report would not
result in savings because this money had already been accounted for and that if
managers needed the positions, they would have to come back to Committee and
Council to justify the need.
Following these exchanges, Committee voted on a
motion from Councillor Wilkinson.
Moved by Councillor M. Wilkinson
That the Corporate Services
and Economic Development Committee approve the report recommendation.
CARRIED
Committee then voted on the item, as amended.
That
Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee approve the
following motion, for recommendation to Council:
1.
That if a position in the City remains open
(vacant) for a period of two years from the date that it last had an Owner that
the position be declared as surplus to the Corporation’s needs and that the
budget allocation and FTE(s) associated with the position be removed from the
corresponding departmental budget; and
2.
That should there be a substantive reason that
the position remain open that a staff report be brought before the appropriate
Standing Committee for their consideration with a reason why the position is
still needed and with a plan that will ensure that the position is filled.
CARRIED
as amended