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Mayor Larry O’Brien says he’ll cut 1,000 jobs from the city’s bureaucracy if re-elected.
O’Brien made the commitment on Thursday morning’s A-Morning mayoral debate.
O’Brien said the best way to reduce sick leave — which costs the city about $28 million a year — is to reduce staff and give them more work.
This isn’t the first time O’Brien has talked about reducing the size of the city’s bureaucracy — now at around 17,000 depending on the season.
He made a pledge to reduce employees during the last campaign and throughout much of his first term.
But documents recently revealed that the number of employees at Ottawa City Hall has grown, costing the city more than $1.2 billion in salaries and benefits each year.
Over the last four years, the city’s payroll has expanded by 16%.
Since 2006, more people were hired than fired, with 2,500 new names on the city’s payroll.
O’Brien blamed the increases on city councillors.
“Each of those employees cost about $100,000 a year. I’m going to cut between 1.5% to 2% of the (bureaucracy). That’s a significant portion of being able to get to my target of zero (tax rate increase).
“There may be some things that will come up over the next four years. I don’t have a crystal ball. But I will get as close to zero as humanly possible,” O’Brien said.
Mayoral candidate Jim Watson has called for a hiring freeze, except for emergency workers.
“You go on about a massive purging of City Hall. Under your term, we’ve seen a 16% increase in staff. That’s 1,180 employees come in on your watch,” Watson said in response to O’Brien.
Capital Coun. Clive Doucet said it was unfortunate that those running for mayor simply talked about cutting, rather than looking at improving morale at the city.
After a news story on the increase in the number of employees was posted on the Sun’s website, the city’s communications department rose to O’Brien’s defence.
Insisting he wasn’t prompted by any urging from the mayor’s office, an e-mail from Mike Fitzpatrick pointed out that while the number of jobs increased by more than 1,000, the city’s growth has also increased.
“Also, during this time the city’s population went from 877,281 to 908,389 or 4.7%.
“So there is a difference of 0.6% between population growth and FTE (full time equivalents) growth.
susan.sherring@sunmedia.ca
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多伦多也是如此。
