What no salaried staff?

If these cuts are mainly from the old pool the plan is maybe to let it get rundown then turn around and say we have to tear it down.

The pools change rooms are already not as clean as they could be, sad that this is the area of cuts the city has chosen.

I wonder if someone with expertise in pool safety has approved the cuts to the water slide attendants? Life guards need to attend to the people in the water – it is often difficult to tell that someone is drowning. I am concerned that having to divert their attention to water slides at the side of the pool will interfere with the life guards’ ability to monitor the pool

They had 6 water slide attendants? Wow…

I’m not sure what this means, “No exempt staff positions have been cut.”

Its always the workers who get cut. They should have started at the top and got rid of eleven managers because those are the people who are completely out of touch with reality and what goes on, on the ground.

+1 Give more.

Posted on Friday, September 26, 2014 @ 3:05 PM by Give more

Its always the workers who get cut. They should have started at the top and got rid of eleven managers because those are the people who are completely out of touch with reality and what goes on, on the ground.

——-

And the union workers have their feet firmly planted in reality? There needs to be some serious cuts to both the front line workers and management before we all go broke. 50 million dollars a year in salaries for a city of around 80,000. Yow.

Wow, it’s about time! Too bad that it didn’t include any management staff but we can keep hoping!

I’ll bet that our unionized “water slide attendants” are going to be in for a real shock when they go looking for another job and find out just how much the private sector is willing to pay for someone with “water slide attendant” listed as their former job? Bet it won’t be anything close to the $20.00 or more that they were getting from the taxpayers!

unfortunate, yet completely necessary. Payroll expense is out of control. Perhaps rather than cutting jobs, the union could allow the city to pay appropriate wages for these positions. $20+ is not in check with the current economics

arent they looking for 8 new employees for snow removal? So there are only 4 losing their jobs.. Would be nice to see if the new 8 wages are less, equal or higher than the ones let go.. To see if this is city hall is just blowing wind up our butts or we are actually cutting wages from budget.

P Val, The snow removal folks will be qualified machine operators or class 3 or better drivers license holders. They will no doubt be paid more than the staff being released from city service at the pool.

There has been no one suprvising the waterside for a little while now. There is simply a sign at the bottom telling kids to go up the stairs once the person at the top has started sliding down. Many kids either cannot read or don’t adhere to the new rules. It looks like an accident waiting to happen.
As for the cleaners being laid off that is sad. The pools always smell bad and are often dirty but in the winter months the common areas can be very dirty at times.

More Money needed for the Winter Games, this may be just the Start!

I see Shari kept her assistant that she really doesn’t need.

A dozen jobs (non staff) is about 2% – nothing to get excited about.

Shari won’t have the assistance for long!
Unemployment arrives for her on Election Day!

Water slide attendants only make maybe $13-14/hr, and that’s even after working there for many years. Take it from one. 40 degree+ heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour at a time; sometimes longer, and we were the ones to clean the change rooms when we weren’t up there. We also were the one’s to help customers with jammed lockers or lost keys. Most of us were lucky to get two shifts a week and we all have several jobs to try to make up for that.

Thanks Grizzly2 for sharing your perspective.

Wonder what kind of severance packages theses people will receive? Should have hired a consultant to determine which area they could have cut in management in stead of consultants for snow removal,infrastructure etc. That would make for an interesting report to read.

Hey Hart guy and others what’s your responce to grizzly 2 statement considering your uninformed rhetoric.

The money the city “will save” will not go to the Canada Games. The games are funded through an extra levy on property taxes. Plus fund raising by the game. I could say something about what happened recently there but others have spoken about that.

Being laid off sucks, forced out is even worse.
Good luck to those impacted.

This is a very small drop out of a very large and bloated bucket.

The hourly wage is irrevelant, if the positions are redundant then they must be cut. Hopefully the days of having a city job meant a job for life no matter what are over. Having department heads justify their department manning on an annual basis is something that should be carved in granite above the main entrance of city hall. This should apply to both hourly and exempt staff.

P Val- The equipment operator posting are clearly marked Winter Seasonal and will disappear with the snow.

My heart goes out to those who have lost their means of supporting themselves and their families. PG is a good community and hopefully you will find meaningful employment soon.

Well said Ibear….it is a sad day for every affected.

Sounds like, all but the financial full time employees; these other jobs were part time, no benefits type of jobs. The employees, typically work 3 jobs to get by on the wages!! The full timers probably got some kind of severance.

“6 customer service ( water slide attendants) from aquatics (staff have been told lifeguards will now have to ensure children are using the water slide properly)” I’ve swam lengths at 4 seasons for several years. love the toony swim. This pool has been on the budget block for many years. How can there still be these over staffed levels? (Keep in mind, I’ve been there more than most of you posters). Coordinating lifeguards to a low use water slide, hmmm, makes sense, except for the union

We are coming to the point where public sector unions are the enemy. If they can’t police them selves, broke taxpayers will.

The good news for all of the low wage earners losing their jobs is that some of that dog food being sold in the local grocery stores doesn’t look too bad.

Almost sounds like four seasons is closing and they’re looking for a PAC.

The truth is, for most of human history, the real elite – the aristocrats, the Church, the dictators, the tribal chiefs – held on to power because most of their followers were illiterate. That, and also because there were no mass media to rile up the masses.

Social media return power to the people

The bloating is at the top and not at the bottom !!!

Come on Charles! You better apologize!

Pretty low there Charles.
I guess a relative of yours running for council won’t be getting my vote!

No going to the pool for me or my kids now. Minimal, or no lifeguard supervision because they are in cleaning the change rooms. Or maybe they are actually on lifeguard duty, and no one cleans the change rooms. Nothing bacteria like more than warm, damp and humid places to thrive. Yuck! Not going barefoot in there for sure.
Not only is it bad enough that 11 families have lost an income, but the wise ones at City Hall have now completely thrown out Health and Safety.
11 families now with no, or reduced incomes will without a doubt have an economic impact on our local economy. Customer service levels available to the taxpayer will be reduced by the people who actually do the real work, just think of it this way. If you are pleased with waiting in line at Service BC for 45 minutes to get your driver’s licence renewed, you’ll be real excited when you wait 45 minutes to fork over your $500 cheque for Utilities at City Hall.
If City Administration perhaps owned up to their credentials and earned their 100+ thousand dollar salaries by actually providing the leadership and expertise they were hired for, we would not be in the predicament we are in now. Hiring consultants for everything from Asset Assessment to Hangnails at $100,000 a pop is a joke. If the tile needs replacing in the Four Seasons, the Custodian could tell you that a lot faster and a lot cheaper than a consultant. If you want to know the current state of our snow removal equipment, ask the equipment operator or the heavy duty mechanic, they will tell you the real truth. If we need to learn how to clear our streets or create some efficiencies in snow removal, take all the guys from YRB out to lunch and for less than 300 bucks you’ve got an answer. But the fact of the matter is this. The City has very highly paid Engineers and Operations Managers who supposedly were hired for these expertise’s, what happened here? Maybe we are laying off the wrong people.

The City powers just culled some low hanging fruit. The real problems at the city are systemic, cutting these jobs will not do much for the bottom line, in my opinion.

There are some rude and thoughtless comments here, some or all of these laid off employee’s lives just got tougher,
so how about some class, people.

metalman.

I see my buddy left a comment under my acronym. Oh well. Seems the city has decided to place the onus on the parents to supervise their kids, parents can’t have any fun with no one to watch their kids, bummer. Teach your kids, no head first down the water slide and wait for the last one to exit? Pretty simple, eh? As far as the change rooms, try cleaning up after yourselves, a little cleaner for the next person. Common sense and courtesy goes a long way. Don’t care much for chopping front line workers, they all do a pretty decent job for a low wage.

seamut, $13 – $14 bucks per hour? If that’s true (IF), then that’s about right for that job, not worth anymore as far as I’m concerned!

By the way seamut, I know that you love all things “union”, but did you notice that regarding the layoffs, I also mentioned “Too bad that it didn’t include any management staff but we can keep hoping!”

You did notice that, didn’t you seamut?? Or are you suffering from selective reading again??

So Dow please give us your super educated solution? You got one that makes any sort of sense?

Funny how we have a story about these few City positions being lost due to a restructuring, but you wouldn’t get this story if Canfor restructured and let 8 people go.

I guess it’s so rare that the City actually loses staff that it needs to be reported.

Like axman says, $50 Million dollars a year for the City payroll in a city of 80,000 people. This is the real story.

It looks like city hall is creating a problem they will solve later with the closing of Four Seasons Pool. I think if that is the strategy then it is short sighted and a further example of city hall forcing decisions on the city without public input.

I would like to see a policy where all salaried staff making over $80,000 per year take a 40% cut in pay for any income above the $80,000 threshold. Make it effective for any new contracts or contract renewals starting with the mayor elect (meaning about a 10% cut in pay for mayor and council), and set a sunset date for any that would wish to keep their job when their contract is due… have a one year notice if they wish to renew at the new rate and if they can’t commit at that time proceed with the hiring process for their replacement at the new rate. Some will opt to quit in protest, so they don’t get severance… others will work to rule till the end of their contract, and so create a hole in their resume… others will realize PG doesn’t have the costs of a Vancouver and so those with skills and looking for a good opportunity to gain experience will be hungry for the chance to step up.

Reducing the top level pay scale and cutting the propaganda minsters in PR and IPG could easily save enough for residential rate payers to have a freeze on property tax increases for at least half a term. I think its the obvious elephant in the room at city hall that none of the vested interest candidates will even consider. We should consider it seriously because the ‘professionals’ at city hall are hooked on consultant reports and can’t seem to figure out the basics of common sense when it comes to creating value.

I sure hope the pertinent folks at city hall read these comments. Citizens in this town are nearly ready for a revolt. It would be nice to see them take this seriously and start thinking.
Maybe we should have a “citizen’s referendum” on what we think of those in the top jobs and what they are doing or not and “vote” them out if they are not doing their jobs.
We really should have some say in whether or not the mayor can hire a ‘personal assistant’ and other unnecessary jobs like this.
She should have to prove an absolute need for something like this.

Maybe we could have some input from the lower echelons as to what the real problems are there.

JB:”….but you wouldn’t get this story if Canfor restructured and let 8 people go.”

The *making leaner* happened in private (for profit!) business like Canfor already more than two decades ago. If the same lean re-structuring would be applied to government jobs each department (staff and hourly) would be at least 25% smaller and thereby less costly and more efficient. And the work would still get done, or else.

PG, restructuring and reorganizations happen all the time in a corporate environment, it isn’t a one time event. Sometimes they involve a lot of employees, sometimes a few. It just happens so often that you don’t hear about it.

these are front line, relatively low paid positions and likely people with no seniority. Not nice to lose your job but there should be other options for them. What it does tell you is that “customer service” is not important at city hall.

four seasons pool was already mediocre in its cleanliness and now it will get even worse. As someone said earlier maybe the strategy is to make it so bad they say hey, we need to close it for lack of use. I do have to wonder if the cuts in the finance area have anything to do with the tip around councilor stolze not paying his taxes. That tip had to come from somewhere. Retribution?