January 22, 2010 - 3:42 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
City Manager Penny Ballem chose wisely when selecting the tool to make necessary cuts.
My first take on this is that 44 jobs being cut thus far is far better for City of Vancouver employees than the original 120. The fact that “opportunities for potential placements of impacted staff” was always a part of the equation is impressive, and this revised number is the result of such efforts.
As I detailed in an earlier post regarding the services review that was just completed at City Hall:
“Achieving efficiencies, rolling back expenditures and cutting staff are never an easy set of tasks for any organization. That being said, what has happened as a result of the shared services review was something that was years overdo, and previously lacking the political will and the institutional leadership to make it happen.“
One would think that the unions, having plenty of advance notice that the layoffs are coming, will be very pleased with this adjusted result. In spite of the rhetoric from CUPE’s Paul Faoro to his membership in an open letter written last month:
“City Council chose to ignore all of the citizens and organizations, including civic unions they heard from during their consultation,”
it is now clear that the opposite is true.
If cutting a bloated and often duplicated bureaucracy results in a mere 44 jobs losses out of 9,000 jobs within the City of Vancouver, I’d say that it represents an impressive result largely brought about by team effort and innovation.
Alright…enough of inside baseball.
November 26, 2009 - 10:56 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
City Caucus' Daniel Fontaine thinks that the Vision Mayor and Councillors "don't want a single legacy from the previous regime to be successful."
The truth is out there. A 311 system has been created for Vancouver, and in fact is already in use – SINCE FEBRUARY 16, but somehow, there is a conspiracy behind the system’s implementation.
At least, that is what you might believe after reading this post by Daniel Fontaine of City Caucus. Daniel was of course the former Chief of Staff to Mayor Sam Sullivan during his single term in office, which is when the 311 motion was passed by the NPA majority council.
This is the query that Fontaine puts forth:
“When you compare this to how every other major city in North America promotes their 311 service, you have to ask why the City of Vancouver remains mum.”
Well yesterday, I decided to make few calls to City Hall to track down why 311 hasn’t been “officially announced by the City of Vancouver.”
Well, after speaking to a few city staff in both the Business Planning and Services department which handles information technology issues and the Corporate Communications team, I got an answer.
Now come closer, and be quiet. I’ll whisper it in your ear. But first, put on your tin foil hat. You ready?
Read the rest of this entry »
October 26, 2009 - 9:42 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
The Vancouver Services Review (VSR) is designed to examine all of the services provided by the City of Vancouver and how the services are delivered. It will involve sharing service between departments, process improvements in activities like payroll and absence management, consolidation of services which are duplicated around the organization, and potentially increased contracting out.
September 29, 2009 - 8:41 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
No long diatribe on Penny Ballem’s memo to staff regarding the Vancouver Services Review, except to say that redundancies between departments and branches of the City should have been eliminated a long time ago. There is no reason why the Park Board and the City of Vancouver should have separate grounds crews, as an example.
City of Vancouver staff redundancies have grown since this photo was snapped.
Here are the highlights:
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