YORKTON - At Monday’s meeting of Yorkton Council Mayor Mitch Hippsley put forward a ‘Notice of Motion’ where, when passed by Council will have the city spend $80,000 to hire a consultant to review city ops.
Council has been meeting quarterly (scheduled Committee of the Whole Meetings) which provides the opportunity to provide direction to Administration on the objectives that are deemed a priority of Council. The priority of reviewing City operations began a number of months ago and now has been moved forward from our queue to the present.
Council has previously suggested a desire to have an independent organization to provide breadth from work with other municipalities to assist with identifying operational savings that could be re-invested in the City’s Capital Program or other initiatives, noted Hippsley’s report to Council Monday.
The process being put forward, and the dollars it will cost taxpayers are both somewhat interesting.
To begin with, Council always points the city administration in a direction, and administration is supposed to work toward those goals.
One would fully expect this Council has asked administration to identify operational savings since they took office.
That they now seek outside eyes at the very least brings into question if this council trusts its administration, and that perception itself is concerning given that the key administration positions are veteran, and taxpayers pay them quite well.
If there is a rift in terms of trust between Council and administration it needs to be addressed, and sooner than later.
So, if we assume for a moment this administration and council need some added guidance, is a consultant service with a fee of $80,000 the best place to start?
There are certainly past mayors and councillors in the city who might be brought together for a consultation reflective of how things have been done locally in the city. It would be something of a foundational/benchmarking exercise.
The Mayor then regularly meets with other city mayors from across the province. They would seem to be another natural source of information on whether Yorkton approaches things in a significantly different way.
When it comes to resources the city is also part of SUMA provincially, and FCM nationally, which have resources which can be accessed as well.
So are consultants needed? Or, other avenues open that save some dollars?
Of course at the end of the day $80K is not a huge expense in terms of overall municipal costs, and they will certainly find some things to suggest Yorkton might do differently since rare is the consultation process that doesn’t find something that aligns with its given mandate. Here they will be tasked with finding efficiencies and savings, so they will.
But, alas those are findings they could likely unearth with a review of any municipality in the country, and a year from now another firm would make new suggestions here too.
If the process saves the city significant dollars it’s a win financially, but will the real cost be the relationship of council and staff?
