The Ottawa Transition Board
2000-2001
What did Amalgamation of the 12 jurisdictions do for Ottawa? Well, you can’t do much if you spend 81% of the new money on Employee Expense. No amalgamated jurisdiction won and resident taxpayers lost big-time.
There are a majority of residents that would like to see the rational for amalgamation revisited. However, amalgamation is not going to go away, so certain critical changes will be required in order to address the Employment Expense fiasco and other spending habits of Senior Management and Council.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
It is priceless and golden to read the final report of the 2001 Ottawa Transition Board in the year 2008.
In retrospect, the report was encouraging for resident taxpayers as a leaner and more efficient city was about to emerge, saving money for all of us.
The then Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Tony Clement, appointed Claude Bennett as the Chair of the Transition Board along with a number of very qualified individuals. That was in the year 2000.
The mandate of the Board was:
-Determine the organizational framework and hire key senior staff
-Resolve transitional Human Resource Issues
-Implement new City Budget
-Restructure Municipal Electric Utilities and Public Works
-Oversee the November 2000 Election process
-Establish the City’s new governance model
-Exercise control over the then current municipal spending
-Include citizens in decision making process
-Ensure transparency of the process with open communications
Claude Bennett issued the Final Report of the Transition Board on January 25, 2001. He declared the implementation of a leaner more efficient municipality was underway. There was a reduction of 1,100 employees to prove it. The Board had also identified annual savings of $86.5 million. The resident taxpayer would see these savings after the third year of amalgamation and annually thereafter.
This was something resident taxpayers could appreciate. It didn’t last long, if it even began. Currently the city structure is a mess, one region against the other. Then we had Staff with their own agenda tending to get into the political nature of the amalgamation beast. Rather, Council should have been flexing its muscles and giving detailed direction to Staff. It seems Council did not want that responsibility. Between Council and Staff, in many cases spending habits were simply not logical.
If you look at my July 22, 2008 report on City of Ottawa revenue and employee expense, you will find that none of Claude Bennett’s declarations come to fruition. Most are not his or the Board’s fault, but I do question his declaration that 1,100 employee positions had been eliminated.
One would not be able to recognize the current structure of the City versus the organizational structure implemented in the transition period. There was no reduction in Full Time Equivalent staff as the Board pronounced and while the number of FTE has not increased dramatically since amalgamation, Employee Expense has skyrocketed.
Residents of Ottawa really have to wonder why the amalgamation process was allowed. This city has a highly educated population, but it appears that participation in the political process is not something that the educated do.
It is too late to go back to the jurisdictional structure prior to amalgamation, but it is not too late to downsize the city operation as it was meant to be. It is better late than never.
The former Mayor and the current Councillors (elected since Nov 2000) are responsible for the financial mess that the City is in. Senior City Staff aren’t receiving any bouquets either. Staff has been reluctant to be transparent in the financial aspect of the City Operations and I presume that they have been able to confuse some of those long term Councillors without difficulty. However, the buck stops at the former Mayor and Councillors.
Keep tuned for disclosure of areas of excess that require the attention of the resident taxpayers now.
Note: If you want to read the final report of the Transition Board (2001), log onto the Ottawa City site and search for “Ottawa Transition Board Final Report.”
Bill O’Malley
Ottawa
Comments to: wmomalley@gmail.com
