[The Mississauga Muse]

As has been mentioned many people have looked at the budget from different sides of the political spectrum and could not find substantial savings. This is true and should be acknowledged. However we shouldn't confuse this issue with value-for-money. ..

...In a recent Toronto star clip they mentioned approximately 50 percent of the 7.8 billion dollar budget is labour costs. If labour productivity is running at about 60 percent of the private sector (which itself can sometimes be no model of efficiency) you could roughly estimate that 1.5 billion dollars of budget spending is questionable. Now you can dispute my numbers but I think it would be hard to argue that the dollar value of labour productivity savings does not exceed the current budget shortfall.

Not disputing anything but let me ask a question. Why would Toronto Council or any other council for that matter move to turf employees when that makes a significant part of their voting base? Any municipality moving to make significant cuts in the work force also makes other municipal employees crabby and happy to vote against them.

Example, I bet there are Toronto voters who work are city employees in Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, name your GTA local government...

They're all (city politicians, bureaucrats, employees) in the same boat when you think about it. And the boat's floating on your dollars --none of 'em want to rock it in the slightest.

Government in Ontario delivers "value for the money" both at the provincial and municipal level and they're all stickin' to that story even as they stick it to us.

 

[rbt]

In a recent Toronto star clip they mentioned approximately 50 percent of the 7.8 billion dollar budget is labour costs. If labour productivity is running at about 60 percent of the private sector (which itself can sometimes be no model of efficiency) you could roughly estimate that 1.5 billion dollars of budget spending is questionable. Now you can dispute my numbers but I think it would be hard to argue that the dollar value of labour productivity savings does not exceed the current budget shortfall.

That really doesn't matter. It takes will take a minimum of 5 years to fix the labour issues with an organization that large, and that is if you make it a top citywide priority. Lastman, an excellent business man regardless of what you think of his image, give it a kick and failed in his 2 terms.

The money is needed now, and frankly the Mayor doesn't have the power to push through an agenda like that by himself.

Look at how the Police Board and Chief (Toronto's police force is known to be paperwork heavy) have outright ignored the request for cutbacks. TTC didn't do much better.

Labour inefficiency Today is the result of decision makers appointed during Barbara Hall's, Lastman's, and Harris's watch.

Take easily a decade or two to swing that beast around.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Remember to that if we want private sector efficiencies from city employees we will have to pay them private sector salaries, which will mean big increases for city staff. And there is no way to make a bureaucracy less efficient than to cut staff and reorgnize. Operational work stops while the reorganization is planned, implemented and then reorganized again.

 

[Chuck]

If the city cut its workforce by 40% and gave the remaining workers a 25% pay increase on the spot to account for their increased workload, overall labour costs would still be 25% lower than they are now. That would represent a savings of approaching $1 billion a year.

The overall payroll could be reduced by implementing a hiring freeze for several years so that as people leave or retire, they are not replaced right away. When someone leaves, their responsibilities could be divided amongst maybe 3 people. This also encourages internal promotion, which is more cost effective than external promotion as less training is required. There should however still be some flexibility as certain departments may require new workers at some point in time.

 

[3cp1]

Remember to that if we want private sector efficiencies from city employees we will have to pay them private sector salaries, which will mean big increases for city staff.

Low skill workers employed by the city make nearly 4 times what low skill workers make in the private sector. As for the city's white collar workers, I think you'll find that there is a lack of productivity. The number of city bureaucrats could probably be dramatically reduced, and the remaining ones could maybe get a bit of an increase for the increased work load. I don't think your assertion is accurate at all.

 

[TrickyRicky]

3cp1,

I think your numbers are a exaggerated. A manual labourer with no particular skills would start at between $9-11 an hour for say cleaning up a construction work site. The same fellow would not be making $40 and hour for the city.

At any rate I know that finding labour productivity savings is a slow process and not politically desirable but any city goverment that doesn't at least try I have a hard time respecting on budget issues. I suspect that budget cutting measures are often even going backwards. So hypothetically say they have 12 guys locked into a contract with above inflation salary increases. They can't fire anyone, they can't reduce salarys so instead they cut the number of trucks available to them and reduce their amount of work by delaying or cancelling work. So now you have 12 guys with less equipment and less to do. Fantastic for productivity.

 

[dowlingm]

Why would Toronto Council or any other council for that matter move to turf employees when that makes a significant part of their voting base?

You're assuming they live in Toronto. Fantino didn't. Gary Webster doesn't. I bet he's not alone by any stretch of the imagination.