Open Council

1st Special Meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

Open Council

1st Special Meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

December 6, 2023, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:01 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen and E. Peloza were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.1   Recruitment, Retention and Accommodation of Planning & Development and Building Staff

2023-12-06 Staff Report - (2.1) Recruitment, Retention and Accommodation of Planning

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the Deputy City Manager, Enterprise Supports, and the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken:

a)    the Planning & Development and Building Services area BE PRIORITIZED for workplace modernization subject to multi-year budget deliberation and approval of the Master Accommodation Plan;

b)    the source of financing for the additional staff accommodation costs BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report as appended to the staff report as Appendix “A”; and

c)    the report entitled Recruitment, Retention, and Accommodation of Planning & Development and Building Staff BE RECEIVED for information.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion TO APPROVE the preamble and parts a) and parts b) to read as follows:

“That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the Deputy City Manager, Enterprise Supports, and the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken:

a)    the Planning & Development and Building Services area BE PRIORITIZED for workplace modernization subject to multi-year budget deliberation and approval of the Master Accommodation Plan;

b)    the source of financing for the additional staff accommodation costs BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report as appended to the staff report as Appendix “A”; and”

Motion Passed (12 to 2)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion TO APPROVE part c) to read as follows:

“c)    the report entitled Recruitment, Retention, and Accommodation of Planning & Development and Building Staff BE RECEIVED for information.”

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

None.

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential (Enclosed for Members only.)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session to consider the following:

6.1 Personal Matters/Identifiable Individual / Employee Negotiations 

A matter pertaining to personnel, financial, labour relations and potential employee negotiations in regard to the Corporation’s association or unions, advice and recommendations of officers and employees of the Corporation including communications necessary for that purpose.

6.2 Land Acquisition/Disposition / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice / Position, Plan, Procedure, Criteria or Instruction to be Applied to Any Negotiations 

A matter pertaining to the proposed acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality, including communications necessary for that purpose; advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege; commercial and financial information, that belongs to the municipality and has monetary value or potential monetary value and a position, plan, procedure, criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality.

6.3 Personal Matter/Identifiable Individual 

A personal matter pertaining to identifiable individuals, including municipal employees, with respect to the 2024 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List.

6.4 Personal Matter/Identifiable Individual 

A personal matter pertaining to identifiable individuals, including municipal employees, with respect to the 2024 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session from 2:17 PM to 4:18 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 4:20 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (1 hour, 34 minutes)

[16:18] OK, colleagues, I’m going to call this meeting of SPVC to order. I’m going to start with our land acknowledgement. The City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak Onishone, Lene Peiwak, and Adewandran. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work in this territory. Also, the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request.

[16:55] To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPVC at London.ca, or 509-661-2489, extension 2425. Before we begin, I just wanted to say a few words, colleagues. I’d like to recognize that today marks the 34 years since the murders of 14 women at La Colle Polytechnique and Memorial on December 6, 1989. This day serves as a call to action, urging us to confront the deep-rooted issues that contribute to violence against women.

[17:29] It is a day to raise awareness, foster dialogue, and advocate for systemic change. I’d like to pose that all of us have a moment of silence on this national date of remembrance and action on violence against women as we honor those lives lost and reaffirm our commitment to fight the hatred that led to this tragedy. If you join me in just rising for a moment of silence, please colleagues. Thank you, please be seated.

[18:22] Okay, colleagues, as you recall, this was a special meeting and I called to deal with agenda items that we were dealing with potentially late into the evening. So what we have is one item for public and then we’ve referred all of our in-camera matters that remained to this meeting. So we will deal with all of those matters before us today. But I’ll start with disclosure of pecuniary interest and I’ll just note that currently there’s no one online. So just the people in the room that you see here are the members who are present today.

[18:56] But I’ll start with disclosure of pecuniary interest. Okay, seeing none, we have one item under consent and that is the recruitment retention and accommodation of planning and development and building staff. You’ll see there’s a staff report before you. It’s got several staff recommendations. I can look to any colleagues who’d like to put the staff report on the floor for consideration and moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Layman. We can take questions or comments for our staff on this. And Mr. Mayors, I think you wanted to provide some introductory comments or no?

[19:32] Yeah, okay, Mr. Mayors will provide some introductory comments and then we’ll open up to the floor for debate, discussion and questions. Through the chair, thank you very much for letting me speak today and you’ll see that we’ve done a significant amount of work since we received the council direction. And what we would try to do throughout this report is provide the details of some of the challenges we’re facing and highlight what we’ve heard from the recruiter and from our staff as well. We have some very well and highly trained planning and building professionals and it was great to be able to hear from them directly directly on what they were saw as the issues that we’re facing and how we can address those challenges.

[20:09] I do really very much want to thank all of our team members that participated. We had a very wholesome discussion and a lot of staff participation. And I just think it’s very gracious for them to be very upfront with their thoughts and comments and allowing for me and for yourselves to be able to see what they’re saying directly and I just thank them for their honest and open feedback. So we’ve laid out here that we can meet the deadline that was the timeline that was provided by council to move to that for one hybrid model. So you’ll see that and there’s of course some costs associated with it, but we’ve provided and have come up with a plan, a lot of work from a lot of folks to be able to make that happen.

[20:52] I’ll pass it over to John Parity to see if he has anything that he’d like to just add from his area. Through the chair, the purpose of this report is to provide information to address ongoing challenges related to the recruitment and retention of planning and development and building staff. It continues to be a challenge to recruit and retain talent in planning and development and building. Currently the staff vacancy rate for planning development positions is 8% and building 16%. This report outlines the current state of recruitment and retention activities as well as workspace accommodations and costs, pertaining to council’s direction for the staff to be working four days per weekend office in one day remote hybrid by the end of the first quarter 2024.

[21:37] So recent feedback from our recruitment firms indicated that they’ve reached out to over 60 planners specifically and have received very few responses. Conversations they had with potential candidates indicated compensation was too low and no hybrid work models. So London is experiencing a shortage of experienced talent in both the planning and development and building areas. Our situation is comparable to what other municipalities are experiencing across the province, which makes recruitment and retention in these industries even more challenging.

[22:09] I would like to echo Scott’s thank you to our staff and the planning development and building divisions for their participation and to our staff who provided the extensive research and input into the report. I would also note that there is a reference in the report to Gen Z. That actually should be Gen X, which you probably picked up on when you’re reading through. (laughs) We would be happy to answer any questions we have. Okay, I’ll turn it over to colleagues for any questions, comments, debate. Councillor Lehman go first. Thank you, through your chair to staff.

[22:46] I have a couple of questions. First comment, thank you for, you know, I know that the work that’s involved to implement staff or council’s are active. First of all, regarding recruitment. Recruitment’s hard across other municipalities as well. There’s a lack of planners. So I guess I wanna ask, what are the qualifications that we are looking for for planners? And can we look at perhaps changing those qualifications and implementing some or augmenting that with some sort of in-house training to provide young people that want to get into the field, but maybe don’t have the specific university degrees or would have you, eager to work, eager to learn, can we perhaps better our competition by looking at, you know, come in, work for the city, and we’re gonna train you to be a planner.

[23:44] Go ahead, Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, we’re always open to like broadening for positions for a lot of other good reasons. There are certain positions as for at least a large component of the planning team that we need to have those planning designations if we want them to be able to speak at OLT hearings and things like that and give those opinions that are the basis for our council reports moving forward too. So we do look for that. On the building side, absolutely we have our own internal training and our own eternal ability to get people up to speed.

[24:17] And we are opening the door to people with a very large range of backgrounds, whether it’s strictly educational or whether they actually have a mixture of experience and which is very important for folks that are for the most part working with builders and contractors on a day-to-day basis. So we have a little bit more flexibility on the building side and we are very much open to reconsidering positions and what’s required and even working with some of the schools like Western that has a program, it’s a very great program but it doesn’t check all the boxes for the registration. So working with them to see like, hey, can we try to get accreditation or get some work with them as well to be able to get their graduates to be able to get those designations that we need.

[25:00] Thanks. I’ll just note for colleagues, Councillor Vameira and his now joining us as well, back to you, Councillor Layman. Thank you. Regarding workload, I know obviously zoning issues being on-pack and I know the number of units that quite frankly has hit record levels that this council has approved and your department has done a terrific job of getting that volume through record levels over the last two years.

[25:34] On the building side, the building permits though, seeing that last pack meeting, a building report are down almost half of what they’ve been. Is that not reducing the workload and the requirements for recruitment, especially on the building permit side? Absolutely, it is opening up some more capacity to be able to do some of the work that had to be a side of desk during the very high work time. So we’re very mindful about when we’re recruiting for certain positions.

[26:06] So if there’s positions that we feel we have enough capacity, then we will be able to defer those positions. However, at the same time, we know that we have a very junior workforce and we see some upcoming retirements coming as well and we need to be able to backfill those folks and have people with the qualifications when this does start to move forward in the building industry starts to get back up to speed as well. So that’s why there is a reserve fund related to building fee permits to be able to have these ups and downs without having to repurpose or lay off staff.

[26:44] So we were able to use that and we want to be able to take this time that we have right now to make a lot of those streamlining and process changes that we need. So, but we also need to be mindful that we don’t want to have people that aren’t fully utilized. So in those positions where we feel that there is a possibility that we don’t have a high need at this time, then we can defer those until we actually think that the things are coming back up. But in reality, if we think that there’s going to be an increase within the next year, we need to get those staff in here trained and then start to get those qualifications they need to be able to do their work.

[27:25] One more question to the chair allows. After your chair, I know, Mr. Mathers, you’re working on not just increasing personnel, but also looking at process to see ways that we can do things more efficiently and how we can implement new technology into that. This might not be the time, but can you just touch on how that is progressing? I know that you probably are planning to pull a report at a later time by just just in light of what we’re talking about today, or today rather to kind of touch on that a bit.

[28:06] Yeah, absolutely. So really excited about the work that’s gone on in just in the last few months. So we’ve had working with our IT partners and actually all of SLT have been able to move forward with getting approval within our internal processes to be able to start three of the projects that we flagged as part of our housing accelerator work. So to be able to start looking at updating our portal to make it more streamlined, to be able to have that tracking that we’ve been looking for for a long time too. So that work is progressing now.

[28:40] We’ve got the sign off and we’ve got to the funding, of course, and housing accelerator to be able to support some of that work. So a lot of exciting work going on right now. Thank you. I have Deputy Mary Lewis next, then Councillor Stevenson, then Councillor Ramen, then Councillor Perable, go ahead Deputy Mary. Thank you, Your Worship and through you. So I’m going to pick up in some degree where Councillor Layman left off and I don’t want this to sound redundant, but for example, in talking to our partners in the private sector who are doing the actual builds, there’s encouragement there even to start directing students to Fanshawe’s GIS urban planning program and alternatives like that.

[29:26] So it’s concerning to me when I hear Western has programs that don’t actually check the boxes to get people registered. So I’m wondering what work we are doing, not just with Western, but with Fanshawe, in terms of not just making sure their programs fit the qualifications we’re looking for, but frankly to actually promote the fact that this is a career path that’s open to young people. ‘Cause frankly, I hear it from a number of young people in my life, they never even considered this.

[30:00] They never even thought that approaching working for the municipality and going into planning or building is an option for them. Even some of the people who are looking at the trades and might in some years be potential building inspectors for us, it’s not even on their radar that the municipality would have jobs for them. So what are we doing in terms of working with our educational partners to promote this as an option? And I know that Mr. Wallace is sitting in the gallery, so I challenge him to take that back to his folks as well in terms of what are they doing to promote it.

[30:38] But what are we doing in regard to actually letting students know that this is an option? Through the chair, so a lot of these things came up actually during our conversations with staff. And on the Fanshawe side, we’ve had a very long-term relationship with them and actually have folks that sit on some of the committees that advise for their programs. So that’s a longer-term relationship we’ve had, so we’ll be able to foster that and really try to focus on what can they do to be able to help. And actually also provide opportunities for their folks in the future too that are coming out of their programs.

[31:14] On the western side, we’re just at the first stage of that. So we just identified that as something that we think we want to be able to make a change on and be able to support our university, our hometown university as well. So we’ll be engaging that in the coming months. And there was another component of your question that I wanted to answer to. So was there anything I missed there or go ahead? So, you know, obviously it’s a post-secondary education stream, but I guess I’m looking to see even if there’s opportunities to reach out to Thames Valley and the London Catholic District to promote this through their skills development as well for grade 11s and 12s as they’re starting to get hands on experience in the trades and things.

[32:00] Is this an option for those students to be aware of as well? Through the chair, absolutely. So we were just at the last stages of working with Thames Valley on their co-op opportunities. There’s of course some health and safety things related to that, so that’s what we’re trying to work out. But to allow like internship opportunities with the city and let people actually learn and experience what it’s like to work here. So, and what a building inspector might be doing in the future or building review or drawing review as well. So that’s very much out ongoing. So two more questions for you and I’ll try and be as quick as I can with these.

[32:39] Certainly through you chair, I’ve shared one example with Mr. Mathers, but I’d like to have an opportunity to hear his response today ‘cause I know he’s had a chance to look into this maybe a little bit. We looked at where we’re weighing experience versus and qualifications that might’ve been fine 10 or 15 years ago versus what we’re posting today. I know one example of somebody who’s been working in the private sector here for more than 15 years who cannot get past first stage of HR even though they want to come and work for the city. So have we looked at those potential barriers to people wanting to transition from the private sector into the public sector?

[33:19] Through the chair, absolutely. So it’s from all facets, it makes a lot of sense to be able to look at the people that have a lot of experience can bring that. There’s of course, there is eventually different designations that they’re gonna need to get and testing that they would have to take, but we need to keep that door open, especially when we’re having a lot of challenges. And there’s a lot of great people that have long-term experience that we want to try to capitalize on to. And not everyone had the same opportunities to go right out of high school and spend a lot of money on pro-secondary education, right? So this also opens up opportunities for formal people to be able to take these very important positions in the city.

[34:02] And through you, chair, last question, because I recognize that this is not just a London challenge. This is a challenge across the province. Every municipality is dealing with this. It’s not a unique to London situation, but in terms of London and in terms of us here at council, and really I know that certainly we always hear that staff will are in council’s hands and will do their very best to execute what council asks. But I’m also mindful of the fact that besides dealing with actual applications and permits, there are a number of reports and reviews that are council directed to you and that take up your staff’s time and energy as well.

[34:46] So I guess what I’m asking is to what level would you ask council to be cognizant of the fact that bandwidth is limited and in terms of the level of workload we’re placing on you right now. Where would you encourage, I guess, council to think about balance? You’ve got the rethinking zoning process going on. We’re working on the housing accelerator fund items. There’s all kinds of big projects.

[35:20] So from your perspective, what can council do to avoid adding to the workload? Go ahead. Through the chair. Great question, very mindful of all of the capacity constraints we have right now. So as far as overall reporting, we are working with our housing supply reference group to be able to come back with a housing action plan to committee within the first quarter of next year. So part of that, we’ll talk about reporting and some changes to the reporting, not only to try to manage the workload, but also just to make sure it’s meaningful.

[35:57] So what you get is meaningful and has the information that’s actually important for your decisions and to be able to show that the progress that we’re making as well. So in the past, we’ve had, for example, in building like monthly reports, that doesn’t mean that data isn’t important. Maybe it could be shared in a different way, like as part of our open data portal. So it actually can just get out there as soon as it’s available versus having to meet the council cycle and then leave future reporting, just to be focused very much at the high level and be more of a performance metric than it is, just a data dump like it is right now.

[36:31] So that is, we’re looking at those changes and happy to provide council whatever they need, but you’re trying to take that into account as far as our recommendations going forward and how much capacity that we have to be able to address all of council’s needs. I appreciate that very much. And I think it’s quite through the chair, quite important for us to think about too. And I think about planning and those monthly building reports and quite honestly, having been on the planning committee for three years now, if those were quarterly instead of monthly, I would still get what I need as a counselor, but it would be less workload on your staff.

[37:09] And so those are the kind of things that I’m thinking about how we can help. So I appreciate that that’s already being looked at and I would just encourage all of us to think about that as we request information and report us back from staff. Next I have Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I’ll just start by reiterating what everyone else has said around thank you to management and to staff for doing this report. And there’s a lot in it and a lot that I’m looking forward to supporting in terms of making London a great place for planners to work and an attractive place for them to come.

[37:43] I have several questions here and they’re focused on the financial implications of this particular report. So under 4.0 on page eight, it talks about that there’s two floors are unable to house the entire staff and compliment. And I just wondered why that is? Has staffing increased so much or have there been changes? So through the chair? Go ahead. So there has been some changes. So what we did, so pre-pandemic, there was spaces allocated for various groups.

[38:22] So planning, actually the development folks were on the sixth floor and the building folks were on the seventh floor. Then there was another space at 206 Dundas that had all the planning people on it. When we came back to the workplace, other folks are now in that 206 Dundas space. And then we doubled up people in the planning and development floor on the sixth floor for a couple of reasons. One, to bring those groups together and they had historically not been together and it’s been a huge benefit to have those folks talking to each other and working with each other every day.

[38:57] And so now that was left with we have these two floors, one with planning and development and one with building. There was also some staffing increases as well as we’re trying to factor in those positions that we’ve highlighted that we will be filling using the housing accelerator but also the ones that are in the business case as well just ensure that we have the spots that are required as part of those growth components too. Go ahead, Councilor. Okay, thank you. It also talks like this 1.1 million that’s being asked for is a temporary solution that according to the report to is not up to standards, the AWS ones.

[39:37] So I don’t see that it improves any of the processes or pays staff anymore. So I just wondered two things. Is it possible for us to get a breakdown of the costs before Council so we know what it is we’re approving in terms of the 1.1 million? And if there’s just a comment as to that, it’s a big ask that doesn’t seem to address what would be of value to tax payers at least, right? Go ahead, Ms. Purple.

[40:15] Thank you through the chair. I do have that information and can provide it. So a large portion of that is simply purchasing furnishing for the additional desks that we currently do not have to support the staff. So we have approximately $650,000 worth of furnishings that includes the new work points that we’re creating, chairs, monitor arms, the walls to house the areas that we have to complete the space so they have the appropriate amount of space. 50,000 is IT and then 400,000 is demolition, or 400,000 is renovations related to seventh floor counter to be able to increase the capacity on that floor to be able to put in additional desks to house additional staff as well as some of the carpeting and obviously because of that, we’ll create a little bit of renovation that we have to patch up the space and put that back to so that it provides an aesthetic look as well.

[41:08] So that’s essentially what it is. It’s to be able to get the additional space to put everybody in there and unfortunately, the costs are significantly harder than they used to be once upon a time to be able to do that level of work. Go ahead. Thank you. So that floor that is now vacant that we’re moving back into doesn’t have furniture in it. So there’s no furniture that we’re able to reuse. Ms. Livingston. I think it’s important to understand that the reason we’re having to do it is because with the shift from the five and oh workdays to four and one, we can no longer share desks for people.

[41:49] So we have to put in additional workspaces, workstations, move, make the kinds of moves. So the 1.1 is entirely to be able to accommodate that and consider some of the additional growth of staff. So that’s, it’s to be able to fit everybody back in under the new work schedule. Councilor Johnson. Thank you. And although I understand that it was only that many years ago, we had desks for everybody, so I guess, right? Like that’s the part I’m trying to understand is we, everybody was working here, then they went home and now they come back and we don’t have any desks for them. Or his staff increased that much that we hired them during.

[42:30] Ms. Livingston, I think you addressed this already. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. So, we were absolutely repurposing any desks that we have available. Some of these spaces, honestly, we’re going to have to make it so that we use the space more effectively to get these, as many folks into the space as well. So we’ll be looking at different types of desks for maintenance that aren’t, don’t take as much space up as well, so that’s a piece of it. And as well that, as mentioned, that there is some changes that we have to make to the actual construction of the locations, like remove barriers so that we can fill in with more additional locations for people to set as well.

[43:12] Okay, thank you. So, under 5.0 on page nine, it talks about a $700,000 projected deficit. And I just wondered if you could just explain that a little ‘cause we’ve got an 8% vacancy in positions in planning and 16% vacancy in positions in building. I’m just wondering where the deficit is coming from there. Go ahead Mr. Mayors. Thank you very much. This is through our mid-year monitoring report that we’ve done, so because our reserve fund levels have dropped, sorry, the number of permits you’ve been receiving have dropped almost 50%, the revenue coming into the area substantially less.

[43:58] Having those reduced, those positions not being filled is benefiting that, so that it’s less of an impact. And one thing that I’ll just, maybe I’ll add some clarity as well as the majority of the costs for the building area are supported for building permit fees. So, there’s a reserve fund that funds any kind of a difference. Of course, that ideally we don’t have to use that and we could be putting money in the reserve fund, but for years that are leaner like this one, it may require us from drawing from the reserve fund to be able to support those differences, but it’s the drop in revenue that’s the biggest concern.

[44:33] Okay, thank you. So, just last question is on 2.3 on page six. And I think it’s already been referred to by some of the other counselors about streamlining, work processes, and so I’m wondering, we’re all really looking forward to hearing about that ‘cause I do hear a lot from taxpayers about frustration around, circling around and around and around, and I’m sure that’s being looked at, just wondering when we might hear back about that. And also, so I’m assuming there’s some process changes we could put in place prior to even getting software and larger investments.

[45:11] And also, it talks about enhancing current recognition and rewards to motivate and acknowledge outstanding performance on staff, and also to have counsel be more supportive. And so I would love to support in any way that way, if there’s a way we can bring an element of celebration or success or rewards, or I’d be very happy to be part of that. So, I’m just wondering if there’s anything you wanna comment on that? Go ahead, Mr. Radish. Through the chairs, I’ll start with the first component there about focusing on, sorry, I wonder if it was that first one.

[45:51] Yeah, the process improvement piece. So, on the planning side, they’re very much, have done a lot of work on this, so they actually had some funding from the province to support a lot of work through their backlog and process a lot of thought and effort into developing and better processes and streamlining them. So, planning very much has that mindset and that work that they’ve been doing in the past. In the building side, they really are in their infancy right now. It’s part of our housing accelerator funding program.

[46:24] One of our initiatives, we’re improving the permitting process and doing those technology pieces, but there’s also the process pieces that have to go with that. So, as part of that work, over 2024 is when they need to have the majority of that work done. It’s supported with some funding from the housing accelerator, so we’ll be able to report back that out in the future as well. So, you’d likely see some of that in our regular updates on the 47,000 unit pledge. So, similar to the report that we had in October 31st, we’d be starting including some of those components in that report.

[47:00] The last one was just about the, yeah. Thank you so much on that one too. So, firstly, I think what you’ve done today is part of the resolution and reaching out to staff and wanting to know about ways to recruit and retain people is a very great opportunity to be able to hear from them and I think it’s very important to them. So, I think in that, you’re really supporting them. And in the future, we would love to have something that would allow you to be able to interact more with our staff as far as supporting them.

[47:34] And I know that the card that was provided after the housing accelerator, we actually had a little parade with that to show it and show all of the very high words that people said here. So, things like that are very important. And whenever you can asking those questions to us, like if you are hearing comments or concerns from folks starting with the question, ‘cause maybe there is a great response and reason why, but our people are here to be people to support you. They’re doing a lot of wonderful work and sometimes there are challenges and we wanna hear that and starting with that question and wanting to know why something happened is a great place to start.

[48:12] But we will be reaching out for future opportunities to be able to have some more engagement with our staff, but thank you very much for the question. So, I’ll just end with a shout out to our planning and building staff. A big thank you from me and from everyone who’s, you know, really looking forward to support with our housing crisis, so we’re cheering you on. Okay, I’ll just read out the list. Councilor Raman, Pribble, Cutty, Hopkins, Frank and Troso. Councilor Raman, you’re first.

[48:45] Thank you and through you. My appreciation as well to city staff and to you Mr. Mathers and your team. This report obviously reflects that the challenges that your staff are under in order to meet the demands and to make the adjustments necessary, some of which have been the result of council motion. So, I want to ask a question that I’m not sure if you’re, you might be able to answer, but I’m hoping maybe somebody in HR might be able to help with as well.

[49:21] With the designation for planners, do you still have to have Canadian work experience? I know that there’s been a move in Ontario around, you know, in past month or so around removing Canadian work experience from job descriptions, but I believe that within the regulatory bodies, when the former minister of labor looked at regulatory bodies and whether or not Canadian work experience was a requirement of the body, planners at the time were cited as needing Canadian work experience, but they did not remove the requirement for planners.

[50:02] Do you happen to know if that has changed since? Through the chair. I’m very familiar with that from the engineering profession because that’s what my profession is, so that they are moving to change those and have done that in some places. Heather McNeely is online and she’s my resident go-to for any planning related questions. So, if she could maybe address that question, that would be great. If not, we can get your response back before. Oh, great. Others here. Yep, go ahead.

[50:35] Yes, and just to be consistent, we’re looking to explore and we welcome people that are non-resident in terms of their education experience. We’ve actually hired people from Pakistan, India and such, so that’s never a question. It’s just really about their experience and working towards their designation. Thank you, but there is a roadblock associated with getting your designation if you don’t have the Canadian work experience. Do you know if that’s still the case?

[51:13] Through the chair. That’s not necessarily the case in terms of they have to demonstrate the nature of their experience and they would go through as any candidate in terms of demonstrating their ability experience and their educational requirements. Okay, thank you. I’m not sure if there’s any advocacy work being done. I know that there’s been advocacy work in general around the need for more planners in Ontario. We know that this is consistently something we’re seeing across the province and the country and internationally.

[51:49] However, one of the challenges with having Canadian work experience in any institution or any governing body is that it also means that when you enter the field, if you enter into a department and you don’t have that, you could be limited in terms of not only your upward mobility within the jobs that are available, but also potentially just even with your baseline salary. So I think it would be something, I don’t know if Amos looking into this or if FCM’s looking into this, but I know that there was an opportunity on Ontario for some talk within the regulatory bodies and I know that that happened in June and I’m hoping that perhaps that’s a change that’s coming down the pipeline.

[52:39] I appreciate the breakdown that you gave us in terms of the costing and that we know that there are obviously costs associated with this, but ultimately one of the things we want to address is we want to make sure that the process improvements can happen, that we can speed things up, and we do that by having the adequate amount of staff. And when I continuously see in our reports that item number two on our list of addressing the concerns of our staff here is a hybrid work model.

[53:19] We know that without the correct amount of our fully staffed up department, we can’t meet our targets, we can’t exceed our targets, we can’t, you know, we can only do so much. I’m really struggling with when we continue to see that as item number two, as to how to address our very big challenge in terms of hiring. Our hiring ability right now is very challenging when people are looking for that hybrid opportunity and we don’t have the ability to put that on the table.

[54:02] So what it means is, and there are reports to look at, you can look at media articles even from this summer that talk about the fact that every delay that we have increases the cost of housing, and we are responsible for those delays if we’re saying that hybrid is the only way to get the job done. So I understand and I’ll skate the line as close as I can around when we’ve made a council decision, but I will say that I recognize what’s in the report, I see what you’re up against, I see the struggle, and I see that this is something where we also have a role to play.

[54:48] So I just wanna be very well aware of that. On the other items that are on the list, of which you can address, I see the challenge because every part of the province is dealing with the same problem. One of the other concerns is, of course, the amount of graduates we have. So I’ll leave it at that for now, being cautious of time, but I just wanted to say, again, to staff, I hear you, I understand, and we’re supportive of you. Thank you.

[55:23] Councilor Preble. Thank you, Mr. Chair, to staff. Thank you as well to you and to your teams. Couple of things, actually, I’ll start from the back where my full councilor said, in terms of the profession, and because I’m dealing with it with other industries right now, I think we were to get it lobby and get it on the Ontario list in demand jobs that would make it much faster, much easier, and we can really tap into the international market as well. So I think as an industry, or we should be lobbying for a provincial government to be included in demand jobs, in terms of the education, and in terms of the Fanshawe College, there are four programs that are potentially fitting our needs, and both Mrs. Morningstar and Mr. Devlin, they are very open to it, and there were service, the previous manager, there were supposed to be some meetings and push this forward.

[56:14] I hope this agenda was taken over, and we are really, because they want to help us, and they want to make sure that they deliver what we need. Also, the Thames Valley Board of Education, same thing, and they are offering Decism’s credits, which is currently, they offer construction, and they are open to it as well. So I really think there is a potential, again, it’s not a thing that’s going to resolve our situation tomorrow, but if you are looking into the future and kind of touching the on-top markets, I think this would be a certainly way to go and to consider, so I hope the agenda was picked up by someone else, and we are going to proceed forward.

[56:51] In terms of the report, I just had two questions, and the first one is end of July, we received a report from you with 17 positions across the two divisions, and now in this report, it says 14 building positions recently added to complement and assist, I just want to make sure that these 17 were brought to us in July, and now these 14, that it’s not in addition, that it’s still part of that package. Through the chair, yeah, they’re the same positions. It just speaks to the building positions, the 14, and then the other on top of the 14 that you mentioned there was planning the vision, so there’s overlap of those two, it’s not new positions.

[57:37] Perfect, thank you, and my other question, actually, sorry, it was already answered, I actually had a question regarding that staff feeling supported by the City Council, but this was already answered, so no more questions, thank you, Dr. Currie. Thank you, Chair, and through you, my question was largely answered, and I’ll just repeat it quickly, to staff, it’s a systemic problem across all municipalities, so when you benchmark, say Waterloo or York, they have the same problems, and it’s not just because of the hybrid model, it’s because they just don’t have enough candidates, right?

[58:14] Okay, thank you, I don’t have any other further questions, I’ll mention that two weeks from tomorrow, December 21st, Deputy Mayor Lewis, and I are having lunch with President Devlin from Fanshawe, I’m buying, so I guess I get to ask the questions, so I will be asking him about this, and so Deputy Mayor Lewis, this will be a priority for us, and we’ll push ahead with this, and Mr. May, there’s all wanna thank you for the work you and your staff do, I know I asked a question of you the other day, you got back to me at hours, I don’t know how you find the time, but you did, and I really appreciate it, and thank you to you and all your staff.

[58:50] Okay, thank you, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you colleagues for your questions, and maybe I’ll just follow up with Councillor Cudi’s comments about meeting with Fanshawe, sitting on planning committee for a number of years. We quite often saw the Fanshawe planning students up in the gallery watching our planning committees, and it was a great relationship, I know COVID hit, and things have changed, but I would really encourage you and any of us to keep that relationship with Fanshawe. They, I know a number of city planners have also taught at Fanshawe too, so there’s a great relationship back and forth that we as the city have with Fanshawe.

[59:29] I think a number of my questions were already asked by Councillor Stevenson with regards to financial impacts, I think the 1.1 million, we have to find that, and it’s coming from places where we have deficits, so it’ll be interesting to see as we move forward, the budget process and how that’s all going to come about. I do struggle, and maybe I should just start with thanking staff, I know we’ve given you a great task, we’re having to, we’ve committed to the 47,000 units, we all want housing to happen, and I think we’re all struggling to make that come about, and I just, for me, I am concerned a little bit of how we’ve set up a few things.

[1:00:19] My concerns around hybrids still are there, I know a number of municipalities are dealing, not only trying to get planners, ‘cause I know sometimes around the AMO board meetings, we look at each other and go, please do not take out planners from one another, ‘cause we’re all in the same spot. But having said that, I do think, and I’ve heard, that there are a number of municipalities that do have some kind of hybrid system model there, and it’s just a comment that I struggle with as we are trying to do more, I am struggling with, that we might be setting ourselves up with a few complications.

[1:01:05] Hopefully we’ll get through that within time, but I just wanna thank you personally for not only in planning, but over in the building division for all the work, and if there’s anything that we can do, I know Deputy Mayor Lewis spoke about not giving you more work to do, but sometimes that’s great, but I think we all need to sort of also work together and understand as we move forward with creating more homes. So thank you.

[1:01:44] Councillor Frank. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. I think that they might be a bit of HR, but also a bit of planning, and just following up on some of the comments, it appears from the report we’ve lost some possible candidates are not attracting certain candidates, as has been mentioned across many municipalities on Ontario having the same issue, and it seems that even having people leave their position due to moving towards the four day office model, I’m just wondering what the impact of the council decision has been to move from a 50% hybrid to an 80% hybrid, and on the overall morale of the staff in planning?

[1:02:24] Go ahead. Through the chair, of course, when something that is a benefit to people is taken away, they’re gonna have a sense of loss from that. So that’s what I’ve heard from folks. We have very hard working folks. They understand that they’re here, they’re here to support council, they’re here to support the community. So as much as that was a reduction in the morale, they’re still very much want to be able to do the really great work that they’re doing every day.

[1:02:58] So I can say there has been an impact. We have gotten feedback back from our recruiter and from other folks as far as like of deciding not to take on roles here, but I am optimistic that creating a great culture, creating a place as an exciting place to work will be a huge benefit for us and people to be able to see that they have a support of council as well as with all the work that they’re doing. And we have brought forward a number of things here that possibly could make improvements, but that hybrid piece, it was still very high on the list of what we’ve heard from folks.

[1:03:38] Thank you, I appreciate that feedback. I think it’s important for us to have a clear understanding of that. And through the chair, I am wondering given the clear desire, both it looked like from the external consultant and from internal survey, both ranked hybrid work environments is the number two desire. I’m just wondering if we hypothetically address all the other issues and it still remains that that is a strong desire of staff, will staff then return to let us know that that remains one of the issues? Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, reporting back on our resources and our needs are always gonna be something I wanna come bring back to council.

[1:04:18] So if we see that we’ve made a lot of changes and still are not able to get back up to the appropriate capacity, that’s something we have to be reporting early and often to yourself. So as part of our 47,000 unit work that we’re doing and that regular reporting, we would absolutely report back on the success or lack there of success from anything that we’ve brought forward for you as a recommendation. Appreciate that. One more question kind of on that vein. Given that some of the desire for a four day work week in the office was regarding performance, I’m just wondering are we tracking improved performance for moving from a 50% hybrid to an 80% hybrid in any meaningful way so council can understand the difference between 50% and 80% or is the main metric a kind of anecdotal comments?

[1:05:09] Thank you. Through the chair, we are doing a lot of work on metrics right now to be able to understand that there wasn’t in the past and in the future, if that’s something that council is interested in, it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to be able to bring it forward by it asks that we have the time to be able to set up our metrics and ensure that we’re tracking them appropriately before we can get into trying to do those kind of comparisons. But that is a key piece of our streamlining is just understanding the resources where people are working.

[1:05:41] We’re very confident from that, that managerial piece that people are working very hard, but we want to be able to show you that. We want to be able to show the community and be able to also just learn from the people who are doing even better than there are other folks and be able to figure out better ways to be able to optimize and that takes data and it takes an approach to be able to track and have targets. So that’s what we’re working on right now. It wouldn’t be impossible to be able to do that back and forth comparison once we have that established. Thank you, I appreciate that.

[1:06:17] I think that’ll be very helpful with decision-making. So I think we all know that we want to make sure that we are getting through the development and planning applications as quickly and as well as possible. So appreciate that. And the last question I had was just in regards to the conversation about the deficit. I’m just hoping for a reminder when we’re getting a report back regarding the updates and true costs for development and planning fees. So they actually cover the true and full cost of the work. Through the chair. So we actually have a consultant on board that’s doing both of those reviews right now.

[1:06:49] And we’re planning on bringing a report back in January to the January the second meeting in January for the PAC meeting to give an update to council because it’s fairly important to understand that some of the decisions that you’re making, for example, this one does have an impact on fees. So if the costs are going up for building or planning, that’s going to need to be reflected in the fees. If you’re approving a business case that has planning and building pieces of it, yes, there is a tax-supported piece, but there’s also substantial piece that impacts fees. So it’s something you need to be able to see to make those decisions fairly.

[1:07:25] So we’re bringing back a report in January on that. Wonderful. Those exhaust all my questions. I really appreciate the answers. And as everyone has already shared, I think we all appreciate the hard work that your team’s doing. So thank you, Councillor Troso. Thank you very much through the chair. I’d like to start with 5.0 financial implications. I think Councillor Stevenson began to touch on this. And I’d like to delve a little deeper in here. The 700 year, the $700,000, I’m sorry, the $700,000 year end deficit.

[1:08:03] What is part of that caused by the clawed back from the province in terms of funds we’re not getting? Or what is causing that? ‘Cause that’s a big deficit. Mr. Raiders. Through the chair, for the most part, that deficit is a drop in revenue from permits. So that we aren’t seeing as many permits come in. It’s approximately, I think, a budget of value is about $6.8 million that we expect in permit fees. So if there’s a substantial drop in the number of fees that are provided to us, then it’s going to reflect itself on that part of the revenue part.

[1:08:38] Thank you. Even though, still through the chair, even though Appendix A does not mention a potential draw on reserves, and Appendix A is limited on its face to money from the operating budget, it does say that there might need to be a draw from building stabilization reserve fund. And then when I look at part B of the operative resolution, what I see is reference to Appendix A, and only Appendix A, but not the entirety of the staff report.

[1:09:16] Should part B of the resolution also, be a little bit more informative and talk about the potential need to charge the reserve fund? Go ahead. Thank you through the chair. The intent is that there will be a transfer from the relevant areas, according to split by the areas that are actually going to be utilizing or impacted by the planning building.

[1:09:51] We will divvy up the funding accordingly to fund the expenses to support the staff that will be going into those relevant areas. So based on that, the expenditures will be charged to the operating budget and the appropriate areas. And we’re actually making a draw from the operating budget into the capital fund to support the capital expenditures. So the actual transfers that might need to be done are actually done at the end of the year from the operating budget. So if there is a draw that needs to be supported from the reserve fund, we do that at the end of the year.

[1:10:26] So these projections were done at our mid-year monitoring report. So there are a little bit out of date in terms of additional expenditures or revenues that have come in. So at the end of the year, that final reconciliation is done. So the intent is that because we know we need to fund the capital expenses of making the changes, we will be transferring the $1.1 million from the operating budget to support a capital account so that we can charge the expenses to the appropriate place. Whether that draw from the reserve fund is required, that will be determined through our end-of-year monitoring report when the final numbers are through.

[1:11:06] So we do not know once those were projections, that’s 700,000. So once we see what our actuals are, then if there’s a draw required, we would make it at that time. Thank you. The bigger issue for me though is, and what still bothers me a lot, which has not been resolved in my mind since our July discussion on this is, how is, and I’ll just ask this very directly, ‘cause you speak about additional recruitment resources. How is more resources going to recruitment firms?

[1:11:44] Going to help, in light of the statement that you make in the second paragraph on page five, that says, quote, “Some candidates upon hearing “that the hybrid work program is not permanent, “have elected not to continue in the competition.” And that’s a very direct question. Go ahead, Mr. Rathers. Through the chair, whenever we can use our people services staff to hire folks, we’re doing that. What we found is we’ve have postings, and we don’t have people with either the qualifications, or anything that we can connect with qualifications to be able to bring them forward.

[1:12:24] So bringing out a recruiter is a last ditch effort to try to get some folks. So we’ve found a recruiter that specializes in building and planning staffs. They have relationships. They can go and they can make cold calls. They can go and reach out to people. So this is an effort to be able to go above and beyond what we are, just because we’re in the situation that we’re in. So ideally, we wouldn’t have to do that. Ideally, we would have folks and we could be competitive in all the different areas, and they would be just applying through a normal portal. This was an effort to try to go over and above to get those folks that may not see our postings, and have a professional that is actually going out and reaching out to people to try to get them to want to work in London.

[1:13:08] And what are the costs through the chair for those additional external recruitment efforts? Through the chair, we don’t have that off hand, but we’ll have to touch base with the staff that are working on that. I’m very pleased to understand that we’re gonna be working with Fanshawe College and perhaps the university to improve the output of their programs.

[1:13:45] But the fact of the matter is, on top of the deficit, on top of the situation that we’re in with the province right now, in terms of not being reimbursed for things that were supposed to have been made whole. In light of the fact that we continue to hear that some candidates are not continuing because of the hybrid situation, and in light of the fact that currently today, we know from these surveys that go beyond the city that the hybrid work environment is a substantial factor. Is it possible that we need to be taking a different approach from what we set out in July?

[1:14:31] So I’ll just say, we’ve made a decided matter of council, so the question is not necessarily to our staff, it’s to ourselves, and there’s items in the report, and I know that staff would like to respond, and they can if they’d like, but you’re asking a question of colleagues, right? Councilor Trostow, I think you can glean from the report that there are a number of considerations that impact it, and you’re making a point, but I don’t wanna drag staff into an awkward position on a decided matter of council on this.

[1:15:09] I think the report is clear in a number of factors. Colleagues have raised some questions and concerns. There’s been a discussion about possible metrics down the road to clarify this further, and so I’m just gonna add that to this. Fair enough, and I would not wanna put staff in a position to have to step into the role of council. I’ll say for myself, I remain where I was, but that July 25th vote. I’d like to ask staff through the chair, if since the July 25th vote, there has been any further consultation with the union regarding the implementation of the changes that we made.

[1:15:46] And I’m not sure if that’s a public earning camera matter, but I’ll go to you in a second. I’ll just, as far as the public piece of this, definitely spoken at length with the president of QP101 about these matters, and also invited him to be able to attend the session that we had with our staff to talk about recruitment and retention, so if he could hear what I was hearing at the same time, and also as part of some of our team meetings, when we had folks be able to speak out of what they wanted to hear.

[1:16:17] So we are having that continuing relationship and dialogue together, and I wanna try to include the 101 folks and their union whenever we can in these discussions. Thank you, to the chair, my next question is part A, the building services area be prioritized. Now, it’s always easy to say something desirable is going to be prioritized, but what’s not said when you prioritize something is that something else is being unprioritized. Are you able to give us any information as to what that might be, and why we actually need this, we’re going to prospectively prioritize this, even though we’re gonna be deliberating this in the multi-year budget.

[1:17:05] Go ahead, through the chair. So as was mentioned and noted in the report, the work spaces that we were creating very much are focused on meeting that council direction, and do not meet the alternative work strategy standards that we’re placing in the future. There’s still, that doesn’t mean that they’re unsafe, or anything in that degree, they just don’t have those same modernized work stand placed amenities. So what we’re suggesting here is that, what our folks, they’re being brought back to work to that for one standard, and we wanna be able to highlight to them that this is a situation that is not long-term, it’s temporary, and then when future changes are made, that they will be, doesn’t need to be first in line, but they need to be very much prioritized as far as being able to have those same amenities and modernize workspace, and the other folks that are working in a hybrid, in a different hybrid arrangement.

[1:18:09] So that’s why we flag this, it’s not to say that other areas are unimportant, it’s just to say that this group should be part of that consideration, and what they’re gonna be asked to do in the current situation, is it not necessarily gonna be for a very long term. Thank you. I’ll take it about 30 seconds. Through the chair, Stola, we’d have to approve that through the mess, we’d have to approve that through the multi-year budget, so what does this language in front of us today add?

[1:18:46] Up through the chair, so what it adds is that, if there are changes, then that they’re being considered. So it’s to highlight that you’re, of course, here to support all of our staff. However, these folks are being asked to come back in, work in the workplace for longer durations. So I want, what was important to be, including this, was for them to know that that’s gonna be recognized, and it’s not going to be forced upon them that they’re gonna be working into a space that is more dense than other areas, as far as people per square foot, and that there is a consideration for that.

[1:19:22] So if there is a council decision made, that they will be considered as a priority. So that’s the rationale for putting this in here. It’s absolutely up to council, as far as what you want to approve is moving forward with office space in general. But this is just a flag, the importance for our area. Press that A and B be voted on separately, ‘cause I cannot support either of those. Thank you very much. That’s fine. Councillor McAllister. Thank you, through the chair.

[1:19:55] I have to collect myself for a second. It’s been a while since I’ve tried to remember all the questions. I’m not gonna repeat myself with a lot of the good questions that have already been asked. So I do want to kind of ask a few questions, which I think we’re kind of missing. I’m wondering in terms of recruitment. I mean, I’m sure this is probably a golden age to be a job recruiter these days. I’m sure they’re making a mint. But in terms of the pool of candidates they’re seeing, have they looked at all new retirees? I know obviously we’ve talked a lot here today about new recruits in terms of the experience, but in terms of the large portion of the population, which are looking at or in retirement, whether there’s been any incentive to look at our former employees to bring them back on a contract basis perhaps.

[1:20:44] But through the chair, yes, they’ve been very much focused on anyone that ideally has like the qualifications for the position, they can just walk in. That’s like the highest tier. And then beyond that, if people are working towards those qualifications, and then the next tier would be the folks that actually need a lot of support, but are great candidates to work here and really want to work in London. So we’re very much open to looking at retirees and especially within high needs that we have right now, whether it’s through contract or through recruitment efforts.

[1:21:19] But a lot of those folks, if they’re former city employees, we can reach out to them and we do that from time to time if we feel that there is a need. But as far as the recruiters, they are for the most part focused on full time staff at this time. But thank you and through the chair. Further to that, recognizing that we are in a poaching environment. And we obviously are in competition with a lot of our surrounding municipalities. But has there been any discussion in terms of sharing the resources we have?

[1:21:51] Because we’re all trying to get towards the same goal. We all recognize the need for housing. But has there been any movement in terms of the municipalities like I’m thinking Middlesex County, Alga and St. Thomas? We’re all pulling in the same direction, but is there any movement in terms of being able to potentially share our planning staff? Through the chair that’s on the planning staff side, we haven’t considered that. We have reached out in the past on the building side and with some of the folks that we have relationships with. There is some concerns about risk in things, especially on the building side and planning.

[1:22:30] There’s probably less so. However, that hasn’t been something that we’ve typically endeavored into. And ‘cause we don’t have that regional approach like we do with some of the other municipalities in the GTA area, so we haven’t done that. Okay, thank you and through the chair. Yeah, I just think it’s an opportunity for greater coordination. Obviously, we’re all feeling that pinch and I think that there’s a lot of opportunities to share those resources if we can. In terms of our current complement, have we done any breakdown in terms of the workflow management itself to see whether we could free up more capacity?

[1:23:05] Looking at the workloads people currently have to see whether some say administrative tasks should be decoupled from the work they’re doing currently. Mr. Mayorsch. To the chair, we have, we’ve actually even done some minor restructuring to be able to allow that to happen to more directly have the folks even with reporting relationships as well, especially on the building side. That’s still in its infancy. My personal perspective on this and something that I share with my folks as well is that I very much want, if you’re a building drawing reviewer, the bulk of your time reviewing drawings, right?

[1:23:45] So the customer service piece is absolutely essential and parts of that might be able to be shared or may be able to have automated ways to do that. So people know what the timelines are, but very much want to focus on the people that are highly skilled and highly as far as a very valuable, not to say that everyone is in value, but have that very sought after skill or spending their time doing the activity that their skill is based on. So as far as our moving ahead, that is absolutely a piece that we want to focus on. Thank you and through the chair.

[1:24:20] And my last question has to do, was trying to kind of find the sweet spot or right sizing our workforce, maybe as a better way of positioning this. And I’m just wondering, ‘cause what we saw in terms of what your team was able to accomplish, like your team went above and beyond, we got the work done and we blew past our target, but it’s based on the build and the not what was approved. And so I’m just wondering, I mean, in terms of your projections, like how do you find that right size of your workforce? Because you’ve got the economic forecasting on one side and then you’ve obviously got the requirement to get these things approved.

[1:24:52] So what calculations have you put into that to come up with the right size of your workforce? Mr. Rather, through the chair, it’s a little bit hard, a little bit of science. So what we’re doing right now, and that’s what we’re working with our consultant on, is to be able to ensure that we have that projection of what we think is gonna be coming ahead, and then also be able to be very considerate about. Ideally, we can, at the same time as hiring on new staff, get extra capacity ‘cause our systems are more efficient. So that’s what we’ve been spending a lot of time on. And what it comes down to is we also need to be doing some monitoring of some of our key metrics during the year, so that we’re not over-staffing, but we’re not under-staffing as well.

[1:25:36] The big challenge is, is if we had a workplace where I could go out tomorrow and then post a job and know that I’m gonna have somebody with the qualifications in a couple months, starting in a couple months, that would be really easy. It’s harder if it’s, I hire someone and it’ll take a year for them to be able to get up to speed. So that’s the challenge that we’re running into. So it very much is a balance. The good thing is that we do have this reserve fund ability, and this is our time to be able to catch up and be able to move it forward. So very much, it’s something that’s essential. I’ll have a little bit more on that during that fee update that’s in January.

[1:26:15] Well, thank you and through the chair, I just wanna close by again, thanking your staff for all their work. I really do appreciate the honesty in terms of what was put before us today. And I would encourage you in the future, keep those honest conversations coming, give us that feedback because we do need to know, you have a vitally important department that obviously is tied to a lot of our targets. So in terms of having the ability to make an informed decision, all the data you’ve presented, just keep bringing it back to us ‘cause we need to have a greater understanding of the needs of your department and how we can help to recruit new folks.

[1:26:51] Thank you. Colleagues, I just wanna say, we’ve had 10 members of council speak to this. I was kind to Mr. Mathers when he said, how long do you think I’ll be there ‘cause he’s a timely matter today that I told him I would get him to at two. And I don’t want him to be late. I know if there’s further questions, obviously they could be asked to council. So I’m wondering if colleagues, I only have one other person on the speakers list, but I know Mr. Mathers has to get somewhere timely. Are colleagues generally ready to vote on this? Or can we, can I let Mr. Mathers go? Knowing that we can ask him questions between now and council too, and this is not final, final decision.

[1:27:25] I just really wanna respect, but I’m sorry, I’m 12 minutes later than what I said. I for sure get you out of here by. So I apologize for that. I appreciate that indulgence colleagues. So is that mean, are colleagues ready to vote? Or is there stuff that you don’t need Mr. Mathers for? Councillor Stevenson, you’re the only one left on the list. Do you need Mr. Mathers or not? No, okay, all right, Mr. Mathers. Thank you very much for answering so many questions. Thank you, thanks to your staff for all of the work they do. I think you’ve heard a number of colleagues today. All echo what’s called in the report, and that’s trying to feel supported by council and ask valuing the work they do.

[1:27:57] So I know that you’ll communicate that back to them when you have the opportunity. So thanks. Councillor Stevenson, go ahead. Thank you. My question was about the 1.1 million expenditure. And we’ve heard said that this is temporary. So I just wanna just ask the question, the 1.1, is it like a phase one where there’ll be subsequent purchases to bring it up to standards? Or is this literally temporary and we’ll be getting rid of it and replacing it with the ones that are up to standard and with the right size?

[1:28:32] Go ahead. Thank you through the chair. So that will get them on a temporary basis into the space. The any additional as alluded to in the first recommendation is that additional funds would be needed to be able to bring it up to standards and try to make it consistent. If we were to use alternative work strategy standards to make it consistent across the corporation, we have a business case through the multi-year budget that would support that for the entire corporation. So that would be subject to council approval through the budget process.

[1:29:05] But this will get the staff in to functional work spaces. It doesn’t provide them some of that extra collaborative space and other things, but we would also need additional space to be able to provide those things. So it would be subject to the broader discussion of what our long-term strategies would be for civic administration space. Thank you. So just to follow up, I’m still not clear. Like is this expenditure then the goods that we’re buying, the 650,000, will they be just reused, just resized with additional components?

[1:29:38] Or are we talking about we’re buying it, but we’re getting rid of it all when and replacing it? And also, we’re just wondering about the timeline when we say temporary. Do we see it as a year or three years? Or I know that’s up to the multi-year budget. So if you can’t answer, that’s fine. Good. Thank you through the chair. So these will be permanent workstations that we’re purchasing. We’re not going to, once we purchase them, we will use them and continue. Anything else would just supplement the space. So the space is, we’re used, I mean, the fortunate part is, we’re able to house the space and house the staff within existing space.

[1:30:13] So we’re incurring a one-time capital cost to be able to purchase and make some of the changes, but we’re avoiding additional lease costs to avoid additional space to requirements. The remainder of the trying to move to new standards is going to be subject to the multi-year budget and would be subject to council approval with respect to timing. Thanks. Okay, that’s all the speakers I have. I have a request from Councilor Trozau to deal with A and B separate from C, C is to receive the report. So we can do A and B together, I think, Councilor Wright.

[1:30:47] Yes, okay. So we’ll do A and B together. Same mover and seconder, if they’re okay with it. Great, yes. Okay, I see thumbs up. So we’re going to open A and B for voting. Councilor blows a vote, yes. Fosing the vote, the motion carries 12 to two. Okay, and C, same mover and seconder.

[1:31:23] Yes, yep, okay, so that’s same mover and seconder. We’ll do part C, no. Councilor blows a vote, yes. Fosing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Okay, thank you very much for that discussion.

[1:31:59] We have no scheduled items, no items for direction, no deferred matters for additional business. We have four confidential session items. We will be in this room for confidential session colleagues at this committee. So I’ll look for a motion to move into confidential session. Councilor Hopkins seconded by Councilor Ferreira. We will open that for voting. Councilor blows a vote, yes.

[1:32:37] Fosing the vote, the motion carries 14 to zero. Okay, we’ll just be a few minutes. Recording stopped.

[1:34:15] Back in public session, I’m going to ask Councilor Raman to report out on our in-camera session. Thank you, and pleased to report their progress with made on items that we went into camera for, there were four of them. Any motion to adjourned. Moved by Councilor Cuddy, seconded by Councilor Stevenson. All those in favor, any opposed? Motion carries. All right, thank you, we’re adjourned.