Replace “Staff Recommendations” with “Staff Option Analysis"

The current practice is for staff to develop their preferred way ahead to solve issues facing the city in the form of Staff Recommendations. The City Manager allocates an enormous level of staff time to produce powerful presentations aim at persuading Committee members and/or Council on their solution of choice. These are often seen by the public as “sales pitches” and have been very effective in influencing the way ahead on the issues. Historically staff recommendations are adopted 90% of the time with no or only minor modification. I believe that it is this practice that has resulted in the gross disparities with other municipalities that have development over the years. At the very least this practice gives the perception that it is the staff at city hall, that are the actual decision makers and not our elected officials.

As outlined above public sector managers sometimes have their own informal organizational goals that are often in conflict with the organization’s formal leadership. Whether or not this is the case at our city hall, this needs to be changed to avoid the perception that city staff are inappropriately influencing Council decisions. Therefore the practice of staff presenting “Staff Recommendations” should end. Instead, staff should identify all realizable options and complete a comprehensive option analysis. Then staff should objectively present their findings to the Committee and/or Council without identifying or hinting at their preferred option.

The fact that staff has had the time to produce these sales documents in the past, supports the finding that Owen Sound city hall is overstaffed. For example, it was clear that hundreds of person hours went into producing the MNP rebuttal presentation aimed at countering MNP’s⁵⁸ recommendation to reduce the size of the management team. This would only be possible if there was sufficient surplus capacity in the Administration to work on this presentation.

The reality is that Owen Sound is the poorest municipality in the study group and cannot afford the luxury of surplus capacity on our city staff. We need every manager and every employee focused on delivering affordable services or supporting those who do. Using scarce taxpayer resources to produce sales and marketing materials that appear to be promoting a particular narrative is not only wrong, but it’s something that the Owen Sound residents cannot afford. Owen Sound’s Administration should follow the lead of the other municipalities in the study group and just present Council with the facts and let them make decisions in the absence of staff influence.