THUNDER BAY — Former mayoral candidate Shane Judge addressed council on Monday to outline his ideas for cutting operating costs.
He suggested that by consolidating back office services – like payroll, human resources, and information technology departments – of the police department, Synergy North, Tbaytel, the District Social Services Board, and the library board into a single city-controlled corporate entity, the city could save up to 10 per cent in administrative overhead.
Judge proposed having this municipal services corporation charge a fee to those boards to access services.
He also suggests the services could be outsourced to other municipalities as a way to make additional revenue.
"With flexible pricing models, this new municipally owned company, for the sake of argument, let's call it payroll plus, will be able to offer back office services to towns and cities all across Northern Ontario, helping cash-strapped municipalities reduce their operating costs," Judge said.
Council did not instruct administration to look into the proposal which city manager John Collin said would involve a "mountain of work."
Judge suggested his proposal could save the city up to 10 per cent on administrative overhead, an idea that was quickly dismissed by Collin.
"I do very much question what was admittedly stated as an estimate of a 10 per cent reduction by doing this. I'm just not there yet and do not believe that that would be the case," Collin said.
“I think the more problematic issue with this is we're talking about independent boards in almost all circumstances, with their own board of directors, and in almost all the cases, with legislation that guides those boards, with also regulation that guides those boards. We're also talking about in some cases, boards that are controlled by other orders of government,” He added.
He noted that the Thunder Bay Police Services, which is it’s a separate legislated organization, is funded by taxes through a memorandum of understanding.
Collin also said there are some aspects of Judge’s proposed municipal services corporation that can be implemented, like standardizing computer software and common policies on finances.
“There's opportunities in all services that we deliver to do a combined effort, but it's a go slow approach because every one of these efforts requires some sort of memorandum of understanding or provision of services agreement because these are independent bodies,” he said.
Nevertheless, Collin advised council against exploring the idea of a municipal services corporation at this time, “simply because of all the other priorities we have on our plate.”
“I think there would be a mountain of work to try to get this done as was presented here this evening,” Collin said.
