By Pepper Parr
July 19, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Well – it wasn’t transparency at its best was it?
Interim city manager Pat Moyle took Council through his take on where the city is in terms of its growth; what has to be done and wasn’t isn’t as necessary as it used to be in terms of where the city is in its growth.
He then took Council into a closed session where he clearly got into the nitty gritty of it all and had council agree that at least part of the “new” structure should be put in place now.
Next thing was to tell the public. There was a little confusion as to just how this was going to be done. Moyle explained that he had staff meeting the following day after which he would issue an announcement. He said that would happen at around noon on the Tuesday.
She started out as a life guard for the city a long time ago. If there was a project she believed in she gave it her best. Community engagement and someone to manage the cultural opportunities were files she wasn’t able to completely close. Kim Phillips however was the best Clerk Burlington had in the past 50 years – no small feat.
Then – not a word until Thursday when a laudatory media release on General Manager Kim Phillips and Director of Engineering Tom Eichenbaum whose retirements had been made public at the Monday Council meeting. Tucked in at the bottom of that media release was the following:
With the retirement of Phillips and Eichenbaum, the city is making the following organizational changes:
Corporate strategic initiatives and engineering will be amalgamated into a new capital works department, responsible for the construction and renewal of the city’s capital assets, including buildings, roads, bridges and culverts.
Allan Magi will become the executive director of capital works effective Aug. 1, 2014.
On an interim basis, the clerks and fire departments will report to Pat Moyle, interim city manager, and parks and recreation will report to Scott Stewart, general manager of development and infrastructure.
Nothing earth shaking there. Moyle has explained in the past that the fire department is the largest staff expense and should report directly to the city manager. It was just difficult to understand why it took two and a half days to get all that out – and so very little in terms of detail.
Both Moyle and his predecessor Jeff Fielding knew that it was time for both Phillips and Eichenbaum to move on. With the legal problems on the pier resolved there was no reason to continue to pay Eichenbaum. There was nothing useful coming from the pen of Phillips – that gave Moyle an opportunity to cut the payroll by close to $400,000.
It also cleared the decks and left some room for whoever is brought in as the new city manager, probably sometime in February of next year, to create their own staffing structure.
Moyle, who saw Burlington through the lens of the regional Chief Administrator where he served for six years, has a very clear big picture. With Director of Finance Joan Ford running the financial side of the city and Scott Stewart running the departments that matters, the city should be able to get to the end of the year with the staffing compliment it has.
All the departments have submitted their 2015 budget numbers which will get to the public almost the day after the new council gets sworn in. It is at that time that the public will get a close look at the Results Based Accountability (RBA) the city has embraced.
Former city manager Jeff Fielding brought that concept to Burlington. He put it to very effective use in London Ontario where he was city manager. RBA is not a new idea but it is certainly a different approach to the running of a city. It took London sometime to get the hang of it – it will take Burlington even longer.
This city’s finance department is as good as it gets – their challenge is going to be to get the rest of the crew at city hall on board.
Accountability was not a word that got much use as the city bid good luck and adieu to Phillips and Eichenbaum.
