The City of St. Albert is looking to permanently change its leadership structure to the tune of an extra $480,000 per year, with administration saying past changes under the former city manager had negative impacts.
The additions would make permanent a structure the city adopted in 2022 as former chief administrative officer (CAO) Kevin Scoble left in January and new CAO Bill Fletcher was hired in June. As part of the transition, the city added two new positions to its executive leadership team: two interim assistant deputy CAOs, one internal and one external. The addition grew the city’s executive team from two to four, including deputy CAO Kerry Hilts.
In an email, city-spokesperson Cory Sinclair said the funding for the two positions in 2022 came from “salary savings of existing vacant positions, which included the CAO.”
Coun. Sheena Hughes said it is not ultimately up to council to say whether the positions should exist, but it is within council’s purview to decide whether they are made permanent through the addition of a new funding stream.
She said she will be posing questions about the new positions during upcoming budget discussions.
“It's going to have to be a decision of this council whether or not we say yes to these extra FTEs (full-time equivalents) ... or say if you want it … shuffle it around to make it work, just like you have for the past seven months,” Hughes said.
New positions don't impact tax increase: city
As new business cases such as additional full-time positions are funded through assessment growth (additional taxes generated by new properties) the additions don't contribute to the tax increase, Fletcher told council Oct. 24.
This is because when the budget is created, a potential tax increase is based on the value of the properties in the most recent assessment — in this case the assessment from 2021, Sinclair said.
"As the city grows physically and/or services increase, the organization requires an increased operating budget to support this growth which may include new staffing," Sinclair said.
Asked if council could cancel the new positions and apply the funding to the tax base, Sinclair said based on council's policy surrounding budget taxation, any growth revenue not applied to business cases is transferred to a pot of funding called the growth stabilization reserve, where it can be used for growth needs in future years.
However, in years where the tax increase is in excess of 3.5 per cent, council policy outlines the funds can instead be applied to the tax base, reducing the tax increase.
The funding for the two new executive positions equates to measures the city has proposed to reduce the 2023 tax increase, such as reducing library grant funding by $500,000.
Other measures the city is proposing to bring down the tax increase include cancelling the public reserve art reserve transfer for $258,000 (funds to purchase and maintain art displays) and cancelling the community capital grant — some $250,000 the city sets aside each year for non-profit community groups to work on capital projects such as building playgrounds.
Impact of former restructuring
Asked why the two positions are required at a time when the city is striving to be lean and keep costs down, the city said in an email that “when the former CAO departed, it was clear the existing span of control … was not sustainable.”
“There are significant operational risks with an executive structure of only two people and it’s critical that the city mitigate these risks,” Sinclair said in an email.
In the business case for making the two positions permanent included with the proposed 2023 budget, the city said restructuring changes made to the executive team in 2019 created “an inability to forward plan and limited ability to work outside the organizational level as all energy was focused on the day to day.”
Under Scoble, the city’s executive underwent an extensive restructuring; in 2019 departments were combined and director positions were reduced from 17 to 12 positions.
The people those directors reported to — some six general managers — were also removed over the course of restructuring, leaving the 12 directors reporting solely to the CAO and deputy CAO.
According to administration, capacity issues within the current organization due to the executive structure have “been leading to employee/leader burnout, job dissatisfaction, and retention/recruitment issues.”
Issues with the current structure through the removal of directors “required multiple departments to be collapsed under a single leader creating further span of control and oversight issues along with legitimate struggles with workload,” the city said.
Keeping the two new assistant deputy CAO positions will provide department leaders with more guidance on operational issues and allow for more timely decisions, the city said.
“I’ve always felt that we were just a little too thin at the top,” Coun. Ken MacKay said. “Decisions had to go all the way up through a filter … now we can maybe get those decisions made at an appropriate level.”
Coun. Wes Brodhead said the new structure “provides for strength within the organization.”
“Making [the positions] permanent is, in a real sense, an affirmation of the two individuals in the positions and the value they bring to the organization,” Brodhead said, referring to interim assistant deputy CAOs Diane McMordie (internal) and Diane Enger (external).
“But also, Mr. Fletcher has been here a number of months, and one of the things that he said he was going to do right from the get-go is take a look at the way the organization is structured … and from everything that he has told me, the structure as it exists works well.”
The city said comparable municipalities have at least four executive-level positions at minimum.
Sturgeon County administration has five members of their leadership team, including a CAO, chief operating officer, and three general managers. Strathcona County has four members on its executive team, including a CAO, and three assistant commissioners.
The City of Grand Prairie has a total of seven positions on its corporate leadership team, however according to its website two of these positions are vacant.
Council will begin hearing budget presentations on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 2 p.m.
