A Lean, Highly Motivated Team

THE SOLUTION TO YEARS OF TAX INCREASES

Owen Sound has a median, after-tax, household income of only $57,600. That says that half of our population is struggling to make ends meet. The reason for this is that Owen Sound lost all of its good paying jobs with industries like, Goodyear, Pittsburg, Keenans, Russel Bros, Kennedys etc. left town 30 years ago and in spite of the Mayor's efforts over the past ten years, we have not been able to attract similar jobs. These jobs are not likely to return regardless of how much we spend on economic development.

The only good paying jobs left are those in Health Care and municipal government. The only growth we are likely to see is in our senior population as people retire and find Owen Sound is a great place to spend their retirement years. There is nothing wrong with that. Seniors are loyal customers.

I don’t object to people making good salaries at city hall even if they live outside the city. In fact I would argue that if we paid higher wages we might attract the talent that could break the cycle of expenses growing faster than inflation. What I do object to are the gross inefficiencies at city hall and wasting time on activities that are not directed to either delivering services or supporting those who are delivering services. We saw seven staff members attending a DIA meeting last month. They outnumbered the business owners who attended. That is not an efficient use of staff time.

This is partly why we have 79 people on the sunshine list and similar municipalities who are delivering similar services have at most 53. There is nothing wrong with people making over $100,000. We just have way too many. I can see at least 5 management positions that we do without at city hall since they don't exist in other municipalities.

So I think we would be better off if we increased managerial salaries, provided an incentive structure based on achieving performance objectives aimed at improving efficiencies and reducing costs, but significantly reduced their number. Fewer people focused on the efficient, cost-effective delivery of services. People who are highly motivated to reduce costs and grow revenues from sources other than taxes or fee increases. That’s exactly what will stop expenses growing faster than inflation in the future and keep the lid on tax increases.