ottawa taxpayer advocacy group

Recommendations

TO ACHIEVE ZERO | $188 MILLION IN SAVINGS

STAFF REDUCTION A 13% growth in employee size since amalgamation is too high, especially since the number of employees should have reduced at amalgamation. Reduce number of full time employees by 10% which will yield a $100 million savings or reduce the number of work days by 10%. The net loss in employees could be part of the new internal consulting team or arms length city owned consulting corporation.
 
WAGE FREEZE $78,000 average per person compensation is a 50% increase from $52,000 at amalgamation. Include office, IT, communication, energy usage and the cost per employee is about $100,000. Implement a 3 year wage freeze for non-unionized employees and negotiate a wage freeze with each union at the end of each collective agreement which will yield $30 million in savings over 3 years. Reduce severance entitlements for new hires and reduce the cost of benefit plans.
 
REDUCE MANAGERS IN TOP TEN DEPARTMENTS There are two top 10 lists, top 10 departments by average compensation per person, top 10 departments by total compensation growth since amalgamation. Reduce the number of managers in these departments by 50%.  According the Auditor General in 2008 we had about 15,000 employees, approximately 14,000 of them are unionized.  If you reduce 1000 managers by 50% this likely save 40 million in yearly operating expense.
 
REDUCE NON ESSENTIAL SERVICES  According to the Frontier Institute; Core Activities are Enviromental Services, Planning & Development, Public Works, Public Safety, Transit, Transportation, and Solid-Waste Proposal. Non Core Activities are Building Services, Civic Operations, Grants, Health Services, Recreation & Culture, Other, Social & Family Services, Social Housing, General Government. In 2007, 45% of all expenditures by the City of Ottawa were on non core activities, this is about 1.1 billion dollars. A 10% reduction will yield 100 million dollars.

CONSULTING Reduce consultant spending by 50%, in many cases the city already has the expertise; this will yield over 30 million dollars. A cross functional internal consulting team or arms length city owned consulting corporation similar to the model of Consulting and Audit Canada can work. The City once had a Consulting & Audit Service branch. This team can temporary back fill short staffed departments as well as become internal consultants to the city on lower value contracts.  Monthly reporting by auditor general on the use of consultants and disclosure of consulting contracts in a more descriptive and clear format.

POLICE / FIRE / EMERGENCY SERVICES The military has a large number of civilian support personnel. Ottawa Police should integrate bylaw and other non union trained civilian security personnel to perform most desk and traffic duty.

EFFICIENCY INCENTIVES Rewarding employees to a maximum of $1,000 for implementing ideas that result in reduced expenses. 

BUDGET ACCURACY / ADMIN COSTS Ensure that the $500 million in general expenses such as HR, Finance, IT, Facilities Management, Administration is attached to a specific service to the taxpayer, so that accurate costs for each service provided by the city can be identified. True cost will better guide public policy on 3P projects, user fees, advertising, spending and other variable costs.  Reduce general expenses by 20% will yield 100 million dollars, they are admin costs for front line services. O’Brien found 1,600 admin jobs that could be eliminated, which he said will yield 240 million in savings by year 2010.
 
LANGUAGE TRAINING  Eliminate spending on French training for all staff that do interact directly with the public.
 
BENEFITS Eliminate use of sick days without a doctor's certificate and eliminate cashing out of sick days. Only allow accumulated sick days to bridge into long term disability. 40 hour work week and eliminate overtime. Retirement age to receive full benefits should be 65 years old. Reduce vacation days, CPP, WSIB, benefits and other post employment liabilities. The City has a negative net worth $65.7 million in 2002 and $480.9 in 2008. This more than 700% increase is a tax of $1,135 dollars per household that has been funded through debt.
 
OC TRANSPO Implement a vendor management inventory system for OC Transpo, Police and other City Fleet. Suppliers own all inventory and are paid only when the product is used.
Outsource bus routes to a combination of owner operator former OC Transpo drivers through a lease to own program, non profits and transport companies could bid to operate vans for low traffic routes. City could retain or outsource the high traffic profitable routes while increasing enforcement on fare collection.  Outsource 50% of rush hour bus services.
Implement a financial comparison between a bus tunnel rapid transit system and a light rail tunnel rapid transit system that takes into account capital and operating costs, smart meter electricity system, land acquisition, speed of service, removal of existing infrastructure, park n ride infrastructure and passenger costs. 
 
COUNCIL EMPOWERMENT Council should view money management policies as their number 1 priority. They should have SAP reports on their computer terminal for intermittent budget analysis. If Wal-Mart can have a global hourly cash flow analysis there is no reason why the City cannot have a monthly analysis. 24hr access to these reports will empower Council to ask the right questions on overtime, sick leave, vacation pay, severance pay, performance bonus, collective agreement violations, job postings & reclassifications.

TRANSIT OC TRANSPO Average compensation per person in 2001- $41,387, OC, in 2008- $74,748, this is an 80% increase in wages and benefits over a period of 7 years. CFIB 2006 Transit Wage Analysis on pay disparity between city transit staff and the private sector: Ottawa 24%, Toronto 22.7%, Vancouver 17.4%, Montreal 15%, Calgary 5%. Using CFIB stats, outsourcing will save us 24% in wages which is about $45 million dollars.  Implement a vendor management inventory system for OC Transpo, Police and other City Fleet. Suppliers own all inventory and are paid only when the product is used. Outsource non express bus routes to a combination of owner operator former OC Transpo drivers through a lease to own program, non profits and transport companies could also bid to operate vans for low traffic routes. Increase enforcement on fare collection.  Implement a financial comparison between a bus tunnel rapid transit system and a light rail tunnel rapid transit system that takes into account capital and operating costs, smart meter electricity system, land acquisition, speed of service, removal of existing infrastructure, park n ride infrastructure and passenger costs.