Lantzville Administration - Too 'Big and Rich' For Its Residents?!?

TO BEGIN, A QUESTION?
Why does Mayor Haime present the 5-Year Financial Plan and not the Director of FINANCial Services or the Deputy Director of FINANCial Services, both highly paid individuals who could probably use the practice of speaking to and interacting with the Public?

The saga of Council remuneration has been long and tortuous, including several 'fits and starts'. I understand that setting your own salary, especially in the public realm, is not an easy undertaking and that is why I have always supported using a logical, well-defined, fact-based process.

There were at least 3 remuneration committees in Lantzville during the past 18 years or so who took on the task of considering the workload of the Improvement District Trustees and making recommendations to them on what they should be paid and have reimbursed as expenses. Since, I, myself, was Chair of one of those committees, I know that some effort went into determining exactly what the Trustees did, how much time their duties took and what that was worth to the community. So, now we have progressed? to where the Councillors themselves will determine what they should be paid. They will sometimes arrange it so that any changes won't apply to them, only the next council, but I would ask you to take a guess at how many of them will be running in the next municipal election in order to 'see their agenda fulfilled'.

Now for the story so far - District of Lantzville council, after initially 'taking charge' and resolving, at their Regular Meeting on Mar. 12/07, to strike a 'Task Force' of residents to review current Mayor and Councillor remuneration and reimbursements and then make recommendations to Council, then rescinded that motion at their May 28th Regular Meeting. The reason given for this about-turn was that staff were having difficulty selecting community members to serve on said 'Task Force' and staff felt that Lantzville residents may not possess the specialized knowledge/experience required to perform the job. Some in our community have suggested that the real reason behind this 'change of horses' is that some members of Council were worried that a Citizen's Committee would actually end up recommending a pay CUT!

So, there you have it! Based on a recommendation from staff, the sole basis for deciding what our local politicians are to be paid is what other politicians in municipalities with 'similar' populations are being paid. While the increases then under consideration, 36% for the Mayor and 26% for each Councillor (followed by 'cost-of-living'), which were to be given second and third reading at the Nov. 12th Regular Council Meeting, are based entirely on the average remuneration for municipalities in the 2600-5000 population range ($17,656 for the Mayor, $8,969 for the Councillors), the actual range of 'indemnities' goes from $8000 for the 2762-peopled Village of Cumberland to $35,626 for the 4963-peopled Town of Osoyoos. This, by itself, should convince any thinking person that population averages alone don't nearly tell the whole story. All of the others below this amount on the list could argue that they too deserve a raise up to the 'average'. As I wrote in the initial installment of this piece, every time averages are used to determine a pay raise, the average increases and then everyone else thinks they're due for a raise, as well, and round and round it goes, driving up the cost to the taxpayers. A committee should have been struck, perhaps by random selection from the tax roles, and they should have developed 'metrics' for the position of Mayor and Councillor (meetings attended, emails/phone calls handled, files handled, issues resolved, etc.) and that should have been used as a basis for recommending the remuneration package. There also needs to be some recognition of the possibility that some of our representatives might be tempted to take advantage of the system and actually do very little.

Staff also cited as further justification for these increases the demands "of establishing Lantzville as a new municipality". Surely, even if these increases had been implemented then (a full 4 years after Lantzville's incorporation), it would be hard to convince anyone that much work relating to this item remained to be done. At the November meeting, the motion to accept the staff recommendation failed on a tie vote (with Mayor Haime, Councillors Haime and Parkhurst voting 'in favour').

From the above discussion, I think you can see that Council originally balked over concern at the 'optics' of giving themselves increases of 36% for the Mayor and 26% for Councillors but came back 'strong' a couple of years later (Feb. 22/10) and gave the Mayor 44% and the rest of Council 37% over 3 years, presumably to make up for the 'paltry' cost-of-living raises they had received in the meantime! During the discussion over these raises, the Chartered Accountant-laden Council made the comment that "the increase goes over 3 years so it is less than a 2% increase since we incorporated in 2003". While I am no accountant, I do operate a pretty mean calculator and I get the increase to be 4% per year for the Mayor up to 2010 and 3.6% per year for Councillors, also up to 2010. If we project that to when the raises will have taken full effect, it becomes 5.8% per year for the Mayor and 5.3% per year for Councillors, quite a discrepancy from 2%!

So here, after much work and many hours of effort in order to find, understand, authenticate and format, is a spreadsheet summarizing Council and senior staff remuneration and expenses since Lantzville's incorporation as a municipality in 2003, where those numbers are available (you can scroll 'up' and 'down', 'left' and 'right' in order to view the entire table:


Although it is indicated on the spreadsheet, it is important enough to be worth repeating that fully one third of Council salaries are tax-free, giving them an approximate 15-25% 'boost' on that amount. Also, money that Council spends on convention/conference attendance is, for some reason, not included with their expenses. This amounted to an additional $17,469 in 2009 and $12,577 in 2010.
It is also worth repeating that, Councillor Negrave tried to give back his raise in 2010 but others on Council expressed concern about how this would look so he seems to have agreed to now take the full salary. Whether or not he then donates the annual salary 'bump' to a worthy charity or cause, I don't know.

I have also tried to sort out the 'benefits' associated specifically with the salaries of Council and senior staff in the above table but, with the limited information available to the public, it is just not possible. What I can tell you, based on information in Schedule C fromo the District's annual Financial Statements, is that the total 'wages, salaries and benefits' cost in 2010 was $820,016 ($772,718 in 2009) and the total cost for 'training, travel and conferences' for 2010 was $56,970 ($57,180 in 2009). If we add these 2 numbers together, we get $876,986 for 2010 ($829,898 in 2009), which represents the total District Council and staff costs, except for 'Consulting' costs (assumed to be for Pam Shaw, Graham Savage, etc.), which were $16,212 in 2010 ($50,595 in 2009). It is not clear where Council and staff 'expenses' are accounted for 'Other'?).

Unless you've been living under a rock, most people living in the Nanaimo area now know that Gerry Berry, until fairly recently the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the City of Nanaimo was, in 2007, the 11th highest paid local government official in the province (in absolute terms) at $219,017/yr. The 'odour' of him 'retiring' two years later and collecting an almost half million dollar 'severance' package is a whole other topic of discussion! Since Nanaimo had a population of ~81,500 people at the time, this works out to be approx. $2.70 per resident/yr. (~$7.80 per household/yr.).

After receiving a steady series of increases, culminating in a 6.5% raise from $115,694 in 2009 to $123,216.57 in 2010 and, with an estimated population of only 3750 residents, Twyla Graff, the CAO of the District of Lantzville, is now being compensated to the tune of $32.90 per resident/yr. (~$92.00 per household/yr.). As well, the administrative budget alone of the then Lantzville Improvement District, now the District of Lantzville has increased from $193,167 to $819,116 since incorporation in 2003. Can anybody think of a really good reason why this should be or have any thoughts on what appears to be a very generous pay package for the 'Captain' of the 'good ship Lantzville'. If so, please let me know at vigilantz@hotmail.com!

I had hoped to be able to provide you with comparisons to our senior staff salaries for communities 'similar' to Lantzville but, after trying repeatedly for more than 3 weeks to have Jedha Holmes, Deputy Director of Financial Services devote a little time to helping me obtain that publicly mandated information through civicinfo.bc.ca, I am down the time it took to compose and reply to the several emails involved but I am certainly no further ahead. It is a matter of the District office investing about 10 minutes to help a resident of Lantzville obtain information which is legislated to be out in the public realm or me spending many hours navigating through 22 different community's websites looking for that information. I still plan on publishing those comparisons as soon as time to gather them permits so be sure to check back here every now and then.

The Goings and Goings at the District of Lantzville Office!

As has been mentioned in several of my recent postings, senior staff turnover at the District of Lantzville has become significant. It has now been over two months since Ian Howatt, the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and Jane Ayers, the Director of Financial Services, both left the employ of the District. This left Twyla Graff, the Director of Corporate Administration (DCA), as the only remaining senior bureaucrat. In the ensuing two months, Ms. Graff has been promoted to the Chief Administrative Officer position, while continuing to carry on her old duties as DoCA plus she has also taken on the duties of Ms. Ayers (with "assistance from a retired Director of Financial Services on an as-needed basis").

Now, some of you may be surprised by all of this since there has been no formal announcement from the District about the changes. It has been my experience that, unless the departure has been 'forced', when senior staff leave a public body there is a broadly distributed communique thanking the individual for their contributions and wishing them well in their new job/endeavours and, if possible, introducing their successor. The only way residents of Lantzville would have found out about these departures would have been to have had occasion to ask for either of them by name at the District office or to have had reason to read the 'April CAO Report' attached to the April 24, 2006 Council agenda.

In my mind, this raises a number of questions.
1. why did they leave and why did their departure happen so 'quietly'?
2. while the District has advertised the two vacant positions and have apparently received a number of applications, so far, neither position has been filled.
3. either important work of the District is not getting done, Ms. Graff is rapidly heading for a 'burnout', or we didn't need all three positions in the first place!
4. it is not good practice to concentrate all of the day-to-day running of any organization in the hands of one person. 'Checks and balances' are built into the system for a reason.

[Update 08 10] Based on a single page item regarding severance paid to non-union staff in the middle of the District of Lantzville 2006 Annual Report, it now becomes apparent that one of these two senior staff members was, in fact, fired. If I had to put money on it, I would guess that it was Jane Ayers, our Director of Finance. When I inquired soon after she left, I was told by a staff member that it was to 'spend more time with her grandkids' but, as to the real reason why she was let go, I suppose we'll just have to continue to wonder.

Since several significant projects requiring much effort, knowledge and skill are on the horizon for Lantzville (Lantzville Foothills Estates, sewage collection system, Lantzville Projects), we need to see these positions filled with qualified people of the highest integrity as soon as possible.
This just in - along with all of the duties mentioned above, it is now proposed that Ms. Graff also share the recently-vacated Emergency Program Coordinator position (with Fire Chief, Tom Whipps, and Supt. of Public Works, Fred Spears)!

UPDATE #1(06 06 28)
On Tuesday afternoon, June 13/06, Lantzville Mayor, Colin Haime, left a message on my answering machine regarding this posting. He begins by saying that "a resident" (I think it's safe to assume that this is not the same 'resident' often railed against by him on his website or in his mail-outs) alerted him to the item posted to this blog just that morning (nice to know that I have developed somewhat of a regular audience!). It would have been preferable if the vigilant resident would care to come forward and debate/discuss issues such as this in a forum accessible to all Lantzville residents and not filtered through the 'optics' of politics. Regretably, that hasn't been how things are done here in Lantzville for quite some time.

To quote the Mayor:
... Specifically, it makes reference to Ms. Graff and I believe it questions her abilities and also her integrity within the blog, specifically at least items 3 and 4 in your list, as well as the last paragraph. Based on this, as a representative of the District of Lantzville, I request that you remove all references to Ms. Graff, specifically with respect to her abilities and integrity and update the blog as soon as possible. Thank you.

Well, I'm not going to be able to do that and, although I've explained this to him before (see comments/discussion for my "Are You Being Provided ALL The Information You Need?" entry, http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/2006/04/are-you-being-provided-all-information.html), for the edification of anyone new 'listening' in, I'll provide my specific reasons here:

First of all and, in order to provide fair comment and useful, readable information, I choose my words very carefully for intent and meaning, editing an entry three or four times before it goes to "press". Also, the information which I have provided in this article and the questions I have raised, as with all my entries, are in the public interest.

I am not specifically questioning Ms. Graff's abilities, I am questioning the ability of anyone to effectively and consistently perform 3 jobs for a prolonged period of time and the wisdom of politicians who would allow such a situation to occur in the first place and then let it continue for months. Furthermore, I am sure that the three Chartered Accountants on Council would strongly support my concern in point #4 if it related to any of their business clients, so why should the public expect anything less? By pointing this out, I am not questioning Ms. Graff's integrity, any more than requiring two members of Council to sign District cheques would be questioning their integrity. It is Council's responsibility to see to it that the necessary, qualified staff and appropriate safeguards are in place.

Once again, as with the concerns raised in my earlier blog entry on communications, instead of providing residents with answers, the Mayor's approach is to "shoot the messenger" by blustering and attempting to censor relevant information. Perhaps, if the District was more forthcoming with information such as this, I wouldn't have to be spending my time telling residents of things which have the strong likelihood of directly affecting them - dare we hope that any new 'communications' strategy will at least begin to address these concerns?!

UPDATE #2 (06 10 05) According to the August/September CAO Report included with the Sept. 11/06 Regular Council meeting agenda, Scott Churko, our 'water guy'/maintenance worker for the past 10 years, has resigned. Unlike the leavings discussed above, this notification at least thanks Scott for his contributions to our community and wishes him well in his future endeavours and even tells us where he will be going (Parksville).
The District has also finally hired a new Director of Financial Services (Mr. Paul Sangalang), five months after Jane Ayers 'resigned'. This still appears to leave the position of Director of Corporate Administration unfilled, now going on six months after Twyla Graff was promoted out of that position to become our Chief Administrative Officer.

UPDATE #3 (07 01 31)
According to the December CAO Report included with the Dec. 11/06 Regular Council meeting agenda, Aletta Larsen, Corporate Administrator Assistant, left the employ of the District in October in order to travel. The same document also states that we finally have a person to fill the position of Director of Corporate Administration, the position that our CAO (Twyla) has continued filling since she was promoted out of it way back in April of last year. The new DDoCA is Ms. Sandra Carlton and she began her employ with the District of Lantzville on Jan. 2/07. Also joining the District is Jason Gosling and it would appear that he is filling the spot vacated by Scott Churko in September, although it looks like he will be able to operate our sewer collection system, as well. I would like to welcome these two individuals to our community and wish them well in their service to the residents of Lantzville. In terms of numbers, we had something like 50% turn-over in staff last year.

UPDATE #4 (07 09 25)
Ms. Sandy Carlton, Deputy Corporate Administrator, who joined the District on Jan. 2/07 had her employment terminated on June 11/07, after being "unable to successfully complete her 6-month probationary period". The District then hired Ms. Donna Tutyko, an Executive Assistant with the City of Nanaimo (one of their favourite entities), who began her employ on Sept. 4/07, without advertising the position to the public. While it would only be proper to welcome Ms. Tutyko, it is clear that the revolving door continues.

UPDATE #5 (07 11 21)
Ho Boy! The November CAO Report informs us that still another senior, staff member of the District is leaving their employ. Paul Sangalang, the Director of Financial Services, is leaving after just over a year of 'crunching the numbers' on our behalf. Unlike most of the previous staff 'resignation' notices made available to the public, this one at least tells us why he is leaving - apparently to return to the Lower Mainland to be closer to his fiance and family. Aside from expressing regret at his leaving, our CAO, Twyla Graff, did not take this opportunity to thank him for his contribution to the past successes of the District. I find that unfortunate.

UPDATE #6 (08 04 21)
In her February CAO Report to Council, Twyla Graff, our CAO, notified Council and the public of the hiring of Greg LeBlanc as Lantzville's newest Director of Financial Services (3 months after Paul Sangalang resigned). Then, in her April CAO Report, she shares the news that, he too, has now resigned. Three Directors of Finance/Financial Services in the almost five years since we became a municipality, including 8 months where we were using temporary staff to complete the work. Is there no one on Council who is concerned about this grossly excessive turn-over and the reason(s) behind it?

UPDATE #7 (08 09 30)
At the May 20th regular meeting of Council, Lantzville's CAO, Twyla Graff, was once again, appointed the Director of Financial Services, which is a 'statutory' position, required under the legislation which governs the operation of local governments in B. C. (Community Charter), giving her both of the 'statutory' positions (DoCA & DoFS) , as well as the only other officer position mentioned in the Charter (CAO). As stated earlier, this is not good 'business' practise! Since this is not her forte and she obviously already has a full-time job to perform (it may even be two!), the District has retained the services of a former retired Director of Financial Services, Mr Doug Lang. While his assistance and expertise should be welcomed, this puts us right back into the position where we have lost a good part of the 'checks and balances' which are built into any 'solid' bureaucracy.

UPDATE #8 (09 03 14)
At the Dec. 8th regular meeting of Council, Lantzville Council appointed Ms. Jedha Holmes, as Deputy Director of Financial Services for the District, effective Dec. 1st. This would appear to mean that Ms. Graff, our Chief Administrative Officer/Director of Corporate Services, will continue to also fill the position of Director of Financial Services, 8 months after our last full-time person in that position resigned. So many questions regarding the financial operations of the District, yet so few answers.

 UPDATE #9 (12 07 30)
At the Feb. 13th regular meeting of Council, Lantzville Council agreed to add yet another 'statutory' responsibility to Ms. Graff's plate, that of the Subdivision Approving Officer for the District. In case you're like me and its become difficult to keep track of her ever-increasing responsibilities over the years, let's make a list, shall we. This single individual now has the following FOUR titles and responsibilities: Chief Administrative Officer, Director of Finance, Director of Corporate Administration, and finally, Approving Officer. Apparently, just as with the other two 'statutory' positions, there are no specific education/experience requirements to hold these positions. In order to help her with these new duties, she will be attending a one-week course and relying on other staff members and 'consultants' for advice.

UPDATE #10 [14 01 17]
At their Mar. 11/13 regular meeting of Council, Lantzville Council appointed Jedha Holmes to the position of Director of Financial Services. For those keeping track, this is the District's sixth Director of Financial Services appointment in the past 8 years. As noted above, Jedha joined the District in December of 2008. A Chartered Accountant, she appears to have now satisfied the District's Chief Administrative Officer, Twyla Graff, that she is 'up-to-the-task' and Ms. Graff has, as a result, switched tiles with Ms. Holmes still leaving our CAO with 4 titles/responsibilities.

Also at the same meeting, Lantzville Council appointed Tamie Nohr, formerly with the RDN, to the position of Deputy Director of Corporate Administration, to fill the vacancy left when Donna Blank resigned to return to employment with the City of Nanaimo.
On Nov. 5th/13, a District of Lantzville advertisement for a Deputy Director of Corporate Administration, Ms. Nohr's position, appeared on the CivicInfo.bc.ca website (an information/communication resource for all BC municipalities). There has been no mention of her departure on the District's website but, by checking the staff present at meetings of Council in the Minutes, it would appear that Ms. Nohr left the District's employ at the end of December, meaning that she was only with the District for 10 months. It does not appear that the District's advertisement met with success since, according to the CAO's Report in January, Lynn Kitchen, a retired Deputy Clerk from the City of  Parksville has been hired on a temporary/contract basis for this position. The same report also announces the resignation of Vince Coles, our Maintenance Technician since 2006, and the District "wish(es) him well in his future endeavours". Given the relatively short time that Tami Nohr was with the District and the fact that she did not garner similar good wishes, I think it is reasonable to assume that she was let go, the second Deputy Director of Corporate Administration to suffer such a fate. On June 1st, Ms. Trudy Coates, formerly Town Clerk for Qualicum Beach, was appointed Director of Corporate Communications, fanilly removing this position from those held by Twya Graff, our CAO.

UPDATE #11 [15 01 05]
At the end of July, only a few months after Council had voted to increase her position from 3 days/week to 5, our Community Planner, Merideth Seeton, left her position with the District of Lantzville, a job she had held since 13 04 01 (16 months). On Oct. 6th/14, Ms. Robyn Holme began her employment with the District as our new Community Planner. On Dec. 12th/14, a District of Lantzville advertisement for a Community Planner, Ms. Holme's position, appeared on the CivicInfo.bc.ca website (an information/communication resource for all BC local governments). There has been no mention of her departure on the District's website but, by checking for the staff present at meetings of Council in the Minutes, it would appear that Ms. Holme left the District's employ at the end of November, meaning that she was only with the District for less than 2 months!!

UPDATE #12 [15 04 07]
Although the process was begun by the previous council and the new council had expressed concerns around the need (best summed up in the following piece by Brian Blood in the on-line Lantzville Log how-many-100000yr-bureaucrats-does-lantzville-with-3600-residents-need ), Ms. Lisa Bhopalsingh, formerly a Senior Planner with the RDN, has been hired as our full-time Community Planner, and is scheduled to start work at the District offices on Feb. 23rd. In case you're keeping track, that means we've had 4 Community Planners in a 6-year time period.