Although the number of city employees has grown at more than triple the rate of St. Albert’s population over the past decade, council has declined to put in place a policy to rein in hiring.
Coun. Sheena Hughes presented a motion at the Nov. 21 meeting that would have seen the council policy on budget and taxation guiding principles amended to require administration to limit new business cases for staff in draft budgets.
There’s currently no limit to the number of new staff positions administration can propose in the draft budget document, although council has the option to remove or add funding for staff members in the budget deliberation process.
Hughes proposed administration be required to limit staff hires in the draft budget document to an amount no more than 1.5 times the percentage increase of population, arguing the current rate of growth is unreasonable. Council would still have the option to include more.
In her presentation to council, she said the city’s own internal figures show drastic increases over the past decade – although the figures don’t include police or contracted positions.
In 2003, the city’s population was 54,588 and there were 389.2 full-time equivalent staff positions to provide services. While the population increased about 18 per cent to 64,645 in 2016, staff positions ballooned 67 per cent to 618.5.
“This long-standing rate of growth is financially unsustainable,” Hughes said.
She noted there were no discernable jumps in the years when Servus Place and the new fire hall opened, suggesting the issue isn’t simply a result of the city providing additional services that need additional staff.
If staff growth in the 2017 budget was tied to population growth of 1.5 per cent, that would mean just 9.4 new staff positions compared to the 26 being sought – although interim city manager Chris Jardine explained at the Nov. 3 budget open house that the larger increase this year is “playing catch up” as a result of a lower-than-required request in the 2016 budget.
The motion was defeated 4-3, with only councillors Bob Russell and Cam MacKay joining Hughes in supporting it.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said he “struggled” with the formula being proposed, because it doesn’t account for the staff that would be needed for large projects like the proposed branch library, the proposed new ice surface or the proposed new aquatics facility.
He also said he was concerned the motion came as a “walk-on” – although it was on the agenda, several councillors had apparently not received the information prior to the meeting.
“I’m struggling with this on all kinds of levels.”
Coun. Wes Brodhead said he took issue with the idea that the budget was in administration’s hands until deliberations, noting that council has input into the process throughout the entire year.
Council passed motions to request administration get things done, and then administration comes to council with budget requests to fund staff positions to get those things done.
“The building of the budget is a year-long process,” he said. “If we get to October and November and it's a surprise to us ... we haven’t been paying attention all along.”
MacKay said he supported the motion as it gets at an underlying problem, and said as governors council members have every right to impose this kind of “governance tool” on city administration.
He noted labour costs are the most significant budget item in every municipality, and keeping those costs under control makes sense.
“If we can manage that better, then we can manage our community better,” he said.
Russell echoed MacKay’s sentiments in favour of reducing staffing costs. He noted his own neighbours in Grandin have said they struggle financially with two major factors: taxes and utility bills.
“They'd like to stay in their own homes,” he said. “We're pricing them out of their own homes and I think this is sinful.”
Coun. Tim Osborne said while he understands the desire behind the motion, he doesn’t see a council policy as being the best place for this kind of restriction – the “rigorous debate” about staffing happens every year in the budget process regardless.
He also pointed out that had this policy been in place for the last decade, there would be a huge number of staff positions that simply wouldn’t exist – around a quarter of the workforce.
“I struggle looking at our community now and seeing what 200 or 160 staff positions are not needed,” he said. “I think residents would see a pretty substantial change to the services and levels of service that they're getting.”
Debate on the 2017 budget is scheduled to begin this Thursday, Nov. 24, at 2 p.m.
