The elimination of 28 city jobs will have, "direct and obvious impacts," on city services, according to city manager Derek Bates.
On Jan. 17 city council announced the elimination of 28 positions at the city, including nine layoffs, as part of $1.99 million in cuts. The day before, city council had instructed city administration to prepare a budget not exceeding a 3.12 per cent tax increase.
The Citizen has obtained a copy of an internal city staff memo dated Jan. 17 which spells out the positions eliminated and what service impacts it is expected to have.
"City council was provided with the situation, they provided a budget mandate. It's council's job to establish the levels of services it wants to provide," Bates said. "Our job is to provide the background and information ... but not to make those decisions."
Over the past three years, the city had reduced net spending by $2.55 million through a combination of expense reduction, delayed hiring, attrition, fee increases, use of reserve funds and other measures, Bates said.
"For three years we've been doing this, so there is not much we can do without effecting personnel and service levels," Bates said. "The first thing we're trying to do is making sure public access to facilities ... isn't impacted. And there was quite a clear direction that we maintain core funding to protective services."
Maintaining funding to road maintenance and snow removal was also high on council's priorities, he said. Finally, decision making was intended to reduce the impact on staff and service levels, Bates said.
Bates said city staff will prepare a report for city council with more detail on the impact the cuts on service levels.
"In the case of the environmental division we had three positions in that area, and we've maintained one of them," he said.
While a substantial amount of planning work had been done by the environmental services division on issues such as air quality and greenhouse gas reduction, those plans are now at the stage of implementation, Bates said. The city's ability to impalement those plans may have to be reduced to match the reduced staffing levels, he said.
The reduction of engineering and planning staff may also have long-term impacts on the city's ability to do things like apply for provincial and federal grants, Bates said.
The city's engineers were instrumental in preparing the grant proposals for the Boundary Road project and River Road flood mitigation project, Bates said. For future applications, they city may have to hire engineering consultants to assist with technical applications, he said.
In terms of the planning department, changes had already been underway since the fall, Bates said.
Several major planning projects, the Smart Growth on the Ground process, myPG and the Official Community Plan, have been substantially completed, Bates said. With those projects complete, the city is well positioned in terms of long-term planning, he said.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) locals 399 and 1048, which represent the city's unionized employees, have voiced concerns about the impact the cuts will have on city services.
CUPE local 1048 president Janet Bigelow said the cuts have created a, "snowball effect," of impacts as staff work to deliver services with less resources.
