“The reality is that there is a trust issue.”

No kidding.

I think it is a trust issue with the taxpayers as well. How can anyone trust an elected official who says one thing at the time of election and then does none of that and goes spending like there is no tomorrow?

City choices is 100% accurate.

Administrators and Council have several crisis on their hands and they are unable to deal with them.

This is the time the new City Manager and the mayor have chosen to vacate the City to do some glad-handing in China. I am sorry, but that shows me that their priority is not in the right place, even if it just symbolic.

I do not care about sister or brother or son-in-law cities. This is not the time. They have money from the province that seemed to be burning a hole in their pockets.

BTW, the one year anniversary of no contract is coming up very quickly.

What excuse does the City have for that?

Where is the president for the inside workers in all of this? We don’t hear a word from him. Does Ms. Bigelow represent both locals?

What this town needs is a non profit organization that calls themselves “City Watch dog”, To keep the glaring errors the city keeps making and make it news worthy. Make the city council, administration know that they are under a microscope when they are spending our money.

What did we gain with the Core Review, Probably a couple million dollars poorer.
What are we going to gain from our Mayor going to China, Nothing. They already know we are here, look around, we have all their sons and daughters going to our post secondary institutions.

I kind of support the union on this one, Thanks for making the city administrators look like a bunch of baffoons.

She makes sense. But here’s the problem. The money is gone. if I blow my paycheque at the casino and my wife asks for more money for groceries the answer is no even though its not her fault. Bad decisions abound at city hall and the union is asking the taxpayer to pony up and the taxpayer is as much a victim. I say be glad you have a good paying job that’s still there in spite of city hall. Look at Detroit and be glad you’re not there – yet

Detroit?

People do not seem to understand the facts about Detroit. Metro Detroit is doing just fine. Half the City of Detroit, including people and manufacturing facilities, has moved out of the core city of Detroit and moved into the satellite cities. It is as if the city of Vancouver had lost half its population because they moved to the outlying cities.

In PG one could compare it to the core to the east of the bypass to the Fraser and to the north of 15th to the Nechako
stagnating while there is development going on in CH, Tyner strip, even the Hart, etc.

I am only 30% overpaid, the city waste more money than that. What is wrong with this picture? How much longer can this carry on?

In fact, if one were to look at that area of the core of PG, determine the tax intake as well as the cost of providing city services to it, I suspect it does not carry its own weight; that it is subsidized by the surrounding developments where the development growth has been happening.

It would be an interesting exercise to do.

My mistake. Sorry, I wanted to know where the president for the ‘outside’ workers was in all of this.
He Spoke: I dont think the unions had much to do with making the city administrators look like bafoons, they managed that one all on their own. lol

“She makes sense. But here’s the problem. The money is gone”

That is not her problem. She and her fellow workers are just that, workers.

The decision makers are the ones responsible for the workers while they work for the City. It is the decision makers who have the job of managing the operation. If they are doing a lousy job, the workers will take the brunt of it.

I am sure the City has not been the most pleasant place to work in the last 2 and even more years.

Procrastinating on any employment contract is an indication of poor work habits.

In the private sector, the workers take the hit for the choices of their employers. Why should the public sector be different?

Pointing fingers at the City and saying ‘it’s not our fault’ solves nothing.

At strike vote time I wonder if the union head said this to the members AGAIN: “Give us a strike mandate so we can show we are serious. I guarantee we wont go out on strike”
lol
enjoy your holiday. $12 per day is gonna make for a crappy Christmas.

Can anyone at city hall confirm the 1 manager to 1 worker ratio? If so can it be justified? If not then lay off the managers not needed and those upper managers who allowed these ratios. During the lockout any managers whose charges were deemed nonessential should be laid off for the duration for further tax savings.

The City, in my opinion, is way too top heavy. Cutting at the top saves more money than chiseling away at the bottom. Then start to redistribute priorities in the ample budget.

These clowns will get voted in again. Just you wait. In the meantime just give those city workers everything they want, start building the PAC, tax me on water going down the drain, and any other tax they can dream up. I’m sure everything will work out.

the city is not broke, council just wants to invest our money in more important things like trips to China, 10 days of winter sports in the 2014 winter games, the air port runway and the sports center at UNBC. Yes money from the tax payers went to pay for all of this stuff. The new city manager is getting paid $250,000 per year. The core review cost over $1,000,000 and could been done by .the highly paid managers. The workers deserve a modest raise.

She might be right that the City wasted over $500,000.00 on the Core Review and did not track the numbers. But you have to ask yourself if all this extra work was done by City staff then they got the work and the overtime. If there was no overtime, then obviously they had time to do the work. If they had time, then what are they doing now??

At the end of the day we need to hold the line on taxes. If money is saved by better management and then the savings are paid out to workers, then in essence the taxpayers did not get any reduction in costs.

There is no doubt the City needs to smarten up when it comes to spending, however the Unions can do their part, by working with management to increase productivity, and reduce costs. Downsizing through attrition or pension bridging are good ways to do it.

One cannot in all honesty expect us to believe that there is no room to move on the Union side.

Bill Gaal, in the past, used to be a CUPE 1048 President, and CUPE course teacher. I think he really is able to give all sorts of ideas to the city lawyer. I bet many of you didn’t know that? And still, we the workers, could save thousands of dollars, but, have never had Queen Sharri or Beth come and ask us how. All of us have ideas. We give all, to provide the best service for all of you. For those of you like Axman an Retired 2, mabey I could take you out on a night when it snowed or ice rained and our job is to make the roads safe for you and your family, in conditions that would make you barf. Making the road and streets safe for you and your family (and our family’s) is our job one, and we are very proud of the job we do. Hope this gives everyone a bit of an insite of the job we strive to do.

Ski50 – this is the way I see it:

If I blow all of my money at the casino and my family needs money for groceries, then the answer is NOT no. I dig deep to find money to look after my family and put food on the table and to me that means cutting back on other expenses to ensure those needs are met. The city is not doing this, so we just allow it to continue? I think not.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with everything the union is asking for, however, for the city to spend like a bunch of drunken idiots, fail to trim the fat inside and ask those who actually do the work to take a cut is just wrong.

And just in case you were wondering, you will never get the same level of service from a contractor, working on our streets, than you will from us. Ever!

For those of you like Axman an Retired 2, mabey I could take you out on a night when it snowed or ice rained and our job is to make the roads safe for you and your family, in conditions that would make you barf. Making the road and streets safe for you and your family (and our family’s) is our job one, and we are very proud of the job we do.

————————-

And we thank you for that in the form of a very nice pay cheque and an equally nice benefit package.

I have no issue paying someone for a job well done but to expect job security just because you’re employed by the city is ridiculous. You want job security work your ass off and make yourself indispensable.

(And I don’t mean you specifically; I use the general you.)

Political Justice wrote: “the city is not broke”.

Exactly!!!!

The thing that ALL forget about is that the City made an investment to help Terasen Gas out a few years ago. That investment is being accounted for in the $111 million or so that the City is borrowing. I believe we are now in the situation that the investment is starting to show a net income every year.

The problem is that such investments are not credited as an asset.

I think it is a good thing that the investment was made. It is a forced saving. If we did not have that, we would instead have an addition to the library, a PAC, a relocated Studio 2880, etc.

And we all know that we do not deserve any of those because they all cater to special interest groups.

“And just in case you were wondering, you will never get the same level of service from a contractor, working on our streets, than you will from us. Ever!”

So all the contractors who clear parking lots and private driveways are useless……

I love your sentiments. Great ethic there for fellow workers doing similar jobs. Nice to see City workers have such attitudes and self righteousness.

JLS, I speak against the City Administration and Council on this and many other matters because they are the ones in control. They are the ones who agreed to past contracts. They are the ones who decide where money is to be spent. They are the ones who decide when to hit taxpayers for more money in some stupid ways.

However, the unionized workers have a part to play in all of this as well. It is one thing to be proud of the work you are doing, it is another thing to speak against workers doing similar jobs for other clients or employers. I bet you some of the city employees are better than some of the non city employees at their job. The reverse is also true.

Be a bit more thankful for the pay and the benefits you get as a unionized city employer rather than as a non-unionized employer outside the city.

margaritaville wrote: “ask those who actually do the work to take a cut is just wrong”

Every single employee of the City has some of the equivalent “goofing off” periods that people accuse outside workers of when they are seen on the job “leaning in their shovels”.

All city employees do work. It depends who you are as to what is considered “work”.

“He works, she does not work” is not a healthy attitude to have, especially if you have never been in the other’s shoes or work gloves.

The city fools you into thinking that with the laid off managers that they are trimming costs, yet what they do not tell you is that these managers get a golden handshake. This is one month severance for every year worked. This cost in some of the past exempt staff have been over $200,000. Again pigs at the trough. Fire their ass and give them nothing. What council needs is to have less directors sitting at the table and have some of the union workers advising mayor and council. We do have some good councillors like Everitt and Skakun

I would like to see the city get contract out prices for say garbage pickup in some or all city subdivisions and plowing of cn centre parking lot– maybe a cost saving, maybe not.

Call the City of Bellingham, WA, to see how they are doing. Ask them if they would consider using their own forces rather than contracting out.

http://www.cob.org/services/utilities/garbage.aspx

Ask BC highways how they feel about contracting out.

Of course, we have to keep in mind that we would have to do much better with senior management when it comes to negotiating, evaluating and managing contractors.

I cannot defend the way the city spends but am glad to see that they are basing their decisions on a 2.5% maximum increase in taxes. For once it is an actual budget and not a spending plan.

According to Bill Gaal it has come down to a matter of wages and benefits and from what I can see in the give and take department the union has the take part down pat but still needs some work in the give area.

$$$-want 2% like other contracts(modest wage increases over the past few years??)

Banking sick days- don’t want to talk about that

Job security – can’t change anything there it’s etched in stone

Shift flexibility – no can do

As to the matter of trust, try writing down what is agreed to during negotiations, have it typed up put in a binder and sent it off to Victoria. If there are any disagreements in interpretations bring in a neutral party that could be called a “mediator” to settle matter.

Political Justice: As for “pigs at the trough” have heard that term used for the rank and file workers at the city too. I’m sure that there are overpaid and under worked employees on both sides of the fence.

Political Justice, I agree with your statement regarding Exempt Staff, “Again pigs at the trough. Fire their ass and give them nothing.”

But my question to you is this, does your statement also apply to Unionized Staff that are not pulling their weight? Do we get to fire their asses as well? If only things were that simple! God forbid that we try to fire a Union Member for non-performance! The Union would fight this tooth and nail instead of acknowledging that a Union Member is not performing adequately and should be canned!

Need an example of this? Look at some of our teachers that are under-performing. We have some very good teachers that do a very good job, but we also have some duds that need to be canned. But we just can’t seem to get rid of them! Thank the Union for that!

I think that we need a complete rationalization of all Public Sector Employees, from the top to the bottom and including Exempt Staff. The ones not pulling their weight, the ones not absolutely necessary, the ones that are just “coasting” until retirement all need to be let go! This seems to work in the private sector! Lets do it with the public sector!!

Fire Bill Gaal! I support the City workers 100% as its the City of PG that is WAY to top heavy in management with managers making 6 figure salaries with zero accountability that need to go, not the front line workers who just want a fair union deal.

Hart Guy: let me guess.. you get to decide who stays who goes? Sounds like genecide… good grief!! Every one is so anxious to contract things out. It will cost less. Perhaps a contractor will put their bid in initially for low and win the bid. But after that up go their fees… to what end? Municipal Governments have mandate to not ‘make’ money…. a private contractors main and sometimes only mandate ‘is’ to make money. Right now the city has one ‘worker’ with ‘one’ boss. Contract out and we have many, many individual behind doors contracts being made. Just doesn’t seem like somthing city administration could keep a handle on. They can’t keep track of their spending now, how would they manage with numerous contractor all from different companies?

Likely this will resolve with a 4 to 6 week strike, after which the city will cave in, and give the union what the asked for, because the wages not paid during the strike, will pay for it.

Sometimes I’m amazed things function as well as they do. On one side you have taxpayers who want services, services, services – but don’t raise my taxes.

You have union workers who say, not our fault management are idiots, go raise taxes and give us what we want.

Then you have management who are called pigs at the trough, fat, bloated, unnecessary – sure makes it easy to attract top talent – and no one really knows for sure if the city is top heavy or not. But I’ve been both union, and management, and my eyes sure got opened when I sat on the white collar side of the table.

And then, you have city council. A group of people who won a popularity contest and have been given ultimate say over everything, and they are woefully inadequate for the job. They’re almost like new parents – here’s a baby – don’t screw it up.

Hello?, I have not suggested any contracting out, so I’m not sure why you are perhaps suggesting that I have.

I am suggesting that we need a top to bottom review of our Public Sector! Perhaps we have too many managers? Do we need that many managers/administrators? I don’t believe that we do! But I also see a lot of front line workers who seem to be standing around with nothing or not much to do! So, can we consolidate departments, reduce staffing requirements and provide for a leaner and more efficient public service?? I believe that we can and we should!

It seems to be fairly common knowledge nowadays that our Public Service Sector earns 135% of what the comparable Private Sector does. This does not sound very reasonable to me!

We, the taxpayers of Canada, British Columbia and yes even Prince George deserve good value for the taxes that we pay. If part and parcel of that is a complete review/rationalization/re-organization of the Public Sector, then so be it!

As far as I’m concerned and as I indicated in my earlier post, if someone in an Exempt position is doing a lousy job, fire em! At the same time, if a Unionized Worker is doing a lousy job, fire em! That’s the way things are in the real world. Who decided that our Public Sector gets to play by a different set of rules??

“It seems to be fairly common knowledge nowadays that our Public Service Sector earns 135% of what the comparable Private Sector does”

I don’t think that’s common knowledge, in fact, I don’t even think that is true. Source please?

Should have added that the devil is in the details. It’s certainly possible that some positions are overpaid, bit it’s also possible that some are underpaid. You can’t look at an average when you are talking about such a wide range of data because it makes for a useless piece of information.

It’s like a Mayor coming out and saying that we need to save 10% in every department. It’s just stupid. You need to analyze each department and determine where savings can be had. Perhaps you could save 100% in one department by eliminating it completely and perhaps another one needs to have its budget increased 20% in order to perform in a satisfactory matter.

Dumbing down complex situations to one liners is great when talking to a dumbed down population, but it does nothing to help solve problems.

I know for a fact that some workers in aquatics make $13.51/hour. How is that 135% of private sector wages?

You are correct, its only 132% ;)

Whatever. As if $13.51/hour is sooo much more than those in the private sector. And management makes sure that this position doesn’t get in enough hours to collect benefits.

Amazing how petty some people on here are. A person makes $13.51/hour working as a permanent part time for the City and that is still too much money. I hope all those that find this too much end up having to go work at McDonalds. I mean, really, that’s what they all think is a decent wage.

“I know for a fact that some workers in aquatics make $13.51/hour.”

Assuming this figure is right, what does this person do specifically in aquatics?

Didn’t someone recently post a link to a City custodial job that was paying $30/hr?

Posted by: JohnnyBelt on November 6 2013 3:00 PM

Didn’t someone recently post a link to a City custodial job that was paying $30/hr?

—————-

They are finalizing a couple of part time positions for cleaners at $25.37. Requirements are grade 12 and 1 year experience. There are also a couple of maintenance positions at $26.46 an hour. Again, grade 12 and 1 year experience required.

This person is responsible for customer service / waterslide depending on which location. This involves sweeping, cleaning (disgusting stuff that some people leave in change rooms, ie feces on the stall walls along with used feminine hygiene products left on the floor or stuck to the stall walls.

Both sides are to blame on this. The city for its ineptness and spendaholic ways by council members, and the unionized workers for not getting into their minds that times are not as good as they could be, and they are already paid more than comparable positions in private enterprise with a retirement and sick benefit plan most workers can only dream about.

I recently had to deal with City Hall on some matters relating to our neighbourhood. This wasn’t council, it was the workers. After months of run-around no one wants to take any responsibility, no one wants to actually do something and everyone is playing the ‘blame game’ and passing it off on someone else or another department.

It’s almost enough to make one decide to move out of city limits, just so as not to have to deal with the overpaid, under-worked, poorly-managed City staff and council.

“Both sides are to blame on this. The city for its ineptness and spendaholic ways by council members, and the unionized workers for not getting into their minds that times are not as good as they could be, and they are already paid more than comparable positions in private enterprise with a retirement and sick benefit plan most workers can only dream about.”

I am in awe of these kind of statements “overpaid Underworked”….AGAIN, as thought the city workers should want LESS because others who didnt get their jobs dont quite have the same pension plan etc?? Insane logic. There are positions within the city that make FAR less than their private sector counter parts. I chuckle at peoples private stories of how they werent quite satisfied cuz the City didnt solve their problems so they make the instant leap that their ALL overpaid etc as jetstream has done. The city of Prince George has by FAR the most whiniest, bitchers I have ever seen! If ya dont like it, feel free to take your own advice and move outta city limits, good riddance.

“If ya dont like it, feel free to take your own advice and move outta city limits, good riddance.”
May I suggest the city workers unhappy with their pay do the same?

I dont hear them complaining about PG! They want a fair deal, thats all.

Well said Janet Bigelow…as well as Gus and other posters here. The attitude of our present mayor and manager, specifically, is disgusting where their work force is concerned and this council has been a major farce on countless fronts. Real tough guys when they have the public purse at their disposal and an opportunity to play little plastic warrior girls along with the high priced lawyer Ms. Wills. Stay the course Ms. Bigelow….take it to strike and let the garbage and snow pile up…oh wait, those are ‘essential services’…pure BS. Disgusting wastes of skin. How’s the weather in China girls?

Exactly Knowledge88. They too live in this town, and yes… they do pay taxes just like everyone else, and get hit with the same problems every other citizen in this town does. They are frustrated as well with the things that go on at city hall. But, everyone who has a boss knows that its rare you just get to do whatever you want at work. Almost every task is decided for you. When to do it, how to do it, and so on.
If the citizens want more or different work out of the city workers, talk to the higher ups – they are the ones in control.

Hello?: “Exactly Knowledge88. They too live in this town, and yes… they do pay taxes just like everyone else,”

You get that they are paid with tax dollars to begin with, right? Based on your logic, we could solve all of our debt problems by hiring an army of City workers.

Knowledge: “There are positions within the city that make FAR less than their private sector counter parts.”

Which ones? Remember, pension and benefits are included.

“The city of Prince George has by FAR the most whiniest, bitchers I have ever seen!”

Yeah, because nobody should ever dare question City pay, benefits, or staffing levels. That gets the ‘whiner’ label slapped on you and some follow up diversion tactic of mentioning China trips and Councillor pay.

I’m sure this has been shared, but here’s a list of City employees making over $75,000 per year. There are 890 employees costing taxpayers $47 million+ dollars, 229 of them making over $75K. This is from 2012.

http://www.princegeorge.ca/cityservices/finance/Statements%20of%20Financial%20Information/2012%20Sofi%20Report.PDF

I am not surprised to see the management change drastically for handpicked friends of the mayor since our last vote. The same friends are now in China with her. This is unacceptable as well as slap in our faces. It’s like getting the finger.
Let us dump her before she becomes eligible for a city pension.

I feel bad for the fire fighters/dept. as they are being lumped into this debate. They are not part of the CUPE bargaining unit. They are paid by tax dollars, but have their own local and are quite independant of CUPE inside/outside staff. I believe there are only just slightly over ? 500 CUPE inside/outside workers. City administration sat in bargaining completely separate with fire dept. ‘Then’ they started bargaining with the CUPE workers. Makes more sense if we’re all bickering over the same issue, not apples to oranges.

It has to be tough for the staff at the city to know that mayor and council voted themselves a 30% pay increase and then gave marching orders to the new city manager to get concessions from those who actually do the work.

The money council wasted on the core review would have covered a 1% increase for the staff and a deal would be done. This dispute is silly as they aren’t even that far apart. Bargaining in good faith seems to have given way to a battle of egos and ideology.

Prince George wrote: “The City, in my opinion, is way too top heavy.”

Many on here have written similar things. Seems to be a general agreement.

I have, on other occasions, written that the City organization has to be reviewed to ensure effectiveness and efficiency. I was under the impression that the core review would at least start that process.

How wrong I was!!

To determine whether an organization is structured for optimum efficiency and effectiveness – to give the best bang for the dollar – one needs to do a functional review of staffing; what are the functions which have to be performed, how are they related to each other, which can be bundled together into work groups and how can the functions be divided among individuals in the work groups?

Eventually most operations do ad hoc shifting of functions based on staff on hand and their workload.

That works for short period of time, but eventually it becomes noticed when bizarre things happen such as a real estate professional having the lead role of a planning functional work group.

It is only amateurs that would consider such nonsensical relationships to last for longer than 24 hours. The functions of a professional planner and a real estate professional could not be further apart. They are like oil and water.