Eight employees left the City of St. Albert’s planning and engineering department in 2015.
There have been a number of questions about turnover in the department, which saw a change in leadership in May 2015 when Gilles Prefontaine resigned from council to take the chief community development officer position. However, the statistics provided by the City of St. Albert show that the turnover is not wildly out of line with past years.
So far in 2016, in January, two employees have left that department. In 2014, five left, in 2013, six departed and in 2012 five left. According to the 2016 draft budget, the department employees the equivalent of 53.25 staff.
Prefontaine said in an interview in January that while the turnover numbers in 2015 were only somewhat up from previous years, in some cases the departures were more visible as staff who appeared frequently in front of council left. The interview was given prior to the release of the statistics, which Prefontaine said he’d been advised to not give out publicly.
Those departures include former director of engineering Tracy Allen and former director of planning Carol Bergum, both of whom were often in front of city council.
“There’s always turnover in most organizations, so there tends to be movement of people, especially when you have people who are working through their careers,” Prefontaine said, adding there is a lot of movement between the 24 municipalities of the capital region.
“We lost a couple more this year than we normally do, but in the scheme of things, like I said, it’s been fairly consistent,” Prefontaine said.
He noted organizations often shift and change when there is a new person in a leadership role.
“So sometimes you will see some natural changes that occur in that case,” Prefontaine said.
The statistical information was provided to the St. Albert Gazette after it filed an access to information request. However, deputy city clerk Mary Nordvedt then gave the paper the information, stating the data was public information and an access request was not necessary.
According to the data, the attrition rate for the planning and engineering department was 15 per cent in 2015. That rate applies to permanent employees only.
The overall attrition rate for the city’s permanent full-time employees was 9.33 per cent. The city’s online statistical information tracker goes back to early 2011 and shows the employee retention rate has increased over the past few years.
For comparison, Strathcona County’s overall attrition rate was 6.3 per cent and the City of Leduc’s was 3.15 per cent. The City of Spruce Grove’s 2015 turnover was 10 per cent, up from 2014’s 8.4 per cent.
Coun. Cam MacKay said the most important positions within a city government are planners and engineers, and he is concerned about the departures.
“They’re also positions where if there’s a high turnover, it can really affect your municipality,” he said.
He’s concerned with the departures of Allen, Bergum and others like Sue Howard, who was the capital projects manager and Eduardo Sosa, who was the infrastructure manager. All four left in 2015, and in January council was notified of the departure of the new director of capital projects and municipal engineering.
“People aren’t satisfied with the leadership they’re receiving in the department, I think that’s quite obvious,” MacKay said. He said he’s never seen turnover this high in the planning and engineering department in his years on city council. The interview was given prior to the release of the statistics.
“That’s what I’m concerned about is when this attrition gets to a point where it starts to delay projects or cause errors,” he said, though he added he wasn’t aware of any cases where this has happened yet.
Coun. Sheena Hughes contacted the Gazette and said she’s worried about the impact the turnover is having on following up on drainage complaints. Hughes proposed a drainage bylaw which has been passed by council.
“As a developer and a business owner I am concerned,” said Daryl Wright about departures from the planning and engineering department., speaking to the Gazette at a recent city open house.
Susan Monson, regional manager at Melcor Developments, said the personnel changes in the department haven’t been detrimental to Melcor’s dealings with the city so far, noting much of Melcor’s work occurs during the construction season, which is coming up.
“For us it’s maybe a little bit too early to tell, but so far things have just been kind of moving along in the same way,” Monson said, adding she thinks there’s still quite a few great people to work with at the city. “For now, so far, so good.”
