If slashing 44 Councillors to 22 is a good idea how about 11?

[nfitz]

I'll be dutifully awaiting for apologies from my detractors.

For what? The idea is terrible ... just because it has support doesn't make it any less horrific.

What's even more bizarre, is that it's virtually the only spending cut Ford has proposed. On top of the $5 million that this might save, he plans to spend much more money on more police, $200 million in tax cuts, a property tax freeze, and also increased TTC spending by making them an essential service!

 

[MisterF]

20% is arbitrary I agree but nonetheless a target, somehting we could aspire towards to achieve.

You have yet to prove why there needs to be a target at all. You have yet to prove that the number of city employees is too high for the size of the city and for the work it has to do. In fact, you seem to be advocating massive upheaval not because of anything concrete, but because you have a gut feeling that departments "could" be bloated, "for all you know". Not a very strong basis for your position.

The primary reason lessen staff is to make the daily operations of a business more efficient. Downsizing increases profits by reducing the overall overhead of a business. And many City offices could be heavily bloated with support staff and redundant departments for all I know. I would probably need to see a listing of every department and every position to see where to trim the fat. As a civilian though I'm unlikely to be granted such access, due in part to some of the reasonings given in Kenneth Johnston's list. If every City Council has under them a staff of 10, you can start to figure out how merging Wards would eliminate some of the redundancy. If an intern earns $15/hr hypothetically and you increase their workload via amalgamation, subsequentially paying that intern a higher hourly rate is still more affordable than hiring another staffer at $15/hr to do the same duties. In many workplaces, out of an 8 hr shift, only 3-5 hours of it is actual work. There's a lot of down time that goes unnoticed. Again, my points are only anecdotal but I can see where the downsizing argument is useful especially in a time when a 80% of a $9.2 billion budget is going towards City/City-run agencies employees' salaries paid for through raised taxes and user fees.

Lessening staff doesn't increase efficiencies. You're getting it backwards. Organizational changes can increase efficiencies in a lot of cases, and as the organization becomes more efficient you can lay off redundant staff. But just firing people hoping that everyone else will suddenly work more efficiently will just destoy morale and make things worse. Trust me, I've worked in environments like that - you don't exactly attract the cream of the crop when you slash pay, overwork your staff, and fire people for no reason.

In 1992, Metro was smaller; instances of one-on-one, face-to-face interaction and rapport between and among citizens and civic workers occured more often; people weren't made to feel like they're just a statistic; colleagues had no greater ambition than performing their duties and feeling pride in satisfying one's customer. If only more of us were interested in aspiring to get back to that level of competency, maybe there'd be less strife and annomosity between one sector of the City municipal gov't/agencies and another, less stroking egos in trying to prevent work-to-rule situations.

The important thing is you had an onion on your belt, which was the style at the time...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Take by Marcus Gee in the Globe:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...save-money-or-improve-service/article1607052/

Fresh Start:

I would probably need to see a listing of every department and every position to see where to trim the fat. As a civilian though I'm unlikely to be granted such access, due in part to some of the reasonings given in Kenneth Johnston's list

I am not sure what sector you worked in, but if you think you can actually figure out whether there is redundancy on the basis of a staff list, without even knowing the details of the work said workers are involved in I think you are gravely mistaken. And before you start quoting Ken Johnston's list, please, take the time to read what's on his website, which I've provided to your for your benefit - like this bit:

http://www.busting-bureaucracy.com/excerpts/reduce.htm

• Be aware that your goal has to be more than just to de-bureaucratize. Your goal is to replace bureaucracy with a more desirable state. So, the change process will be to move "toward" something better, rather than to "get rid of" the existing state. You de-bureaucratize as a by-product of achieving "quality" or "extraordinary service" or some other customer-focused goal.

• You fool yourself if you think you can reduce bureaucracy by substituting one in-focused set of goals for another in-focused set of goals. In other words, you don’t de-bureaucratize by mounting a campaign for better profits, or lower costs, or higher dividends. These are examples of the kinds of goals that led your organization to becoming bureaucratic in the first place.

As much as a singular perspective on bureaucracy as it is, it offers quite a bit of answers to your own musings and only serves to highlight your selective use of literature to support your point.

AoD