Terms of James’ Departure from City Revealed
The response to part of a Freedom of Information Request filed with the City, indicates Ms. James agreed to a “leave with pay” until September 25th of 2015. According to the agreement signed January 10th, Ms. James’ employment would be terminated and a Record of Employment issued effective September 25th.
For the course of the 8.5 months she was to be on ‘leave’, the City agreed to continue to pay Ms. James’ salary in the usual way, pay the premiums for Medical, Dental and Extended Health, continue to make contributions to the Pension Plan, and continue to pay her car allowance in the amount of $500 per month.
Under the agreement, the City was to “permit Ms. James to retain her mobile telephone and number (subject to the provider’s consent), and she would be responsible for the full costs of her mobile effective February 1, 2015.
The City also agreed to pay up to $25,000 for moving expenses (receipts required) and up to $2,500 for legal fees.
The agreement is a little more expensive than the package said to have been negotiated when Ms. James arrived in May of 2013.
At that time, the City indicated her severance package would consist of six months salary plus one month for each year of service. If that was the full severance package agreed to at the time of her hiring, she could expect to receive 7.5 months of salary. The additional month under this severance deal may well be to cover the 30 vacation days she was entitled to.
The City did pay “up to $25,000” in moving expenses to bring Ms. James to Prince George, so the exit moving expenses would appear to be in addition to the severance package she had negotiated when hired. Also, the continued vehicle allowance of $500 per month would add nearly $4.5 thousand to the deal.
With Legal fees tacked on, the cost of saying farewell to Ms. James will cost the City up to $32 thousand dollars over and above the severance package the City had indicated was negotiated with Ms. James in the spring of 2013 when she was hired. The exact figure cannot be determined at this time as two elements, the moving expenses and legal fees, could come in under their allotted maximums.
250News has yet to receive the requested details of the departure deal arranged for Communications Manager Todd Corrigall.
Comments
I guess next time we hire a city manager, the contract should come under a citizen’s review!
Makes me wonder how we are possible managing without her?
Do we really need a “city manager”?
How about hiring a local?
Ridiculous! Just like paying two CEO’s in TransLink. No end to the taxpayers money that the governments can’t take. Time for a tea party.
Money well spent, good riddance. Not well thought out in the beginning but look who hired her.She created a caustic enviroment in city hall. Now lets get on with things.
More taxes , pay more get less.
I agree. money well spent! The broken culture created within the City needed to be addressed. While I’m not necessarily a huge union supporter, I do agree that everyone deserves respect from their employer. There were one to many horrible stories of James’s toxic management style for me to stomach. IMO Government should always lead by example on all levels, this at times is easier said than done but Mayor and Council got it right on this issue. Grade A+
Do city mayors get a golden handshake too when they vacate the position by either failing to get re-elected or not running again? Politicians at the provincial level (possibly federal as well) get a nice bonus in order to tide them over until they do find gainful employment again.
There will always be things we don’t like about how our tax dollars are spent, but for me, surprisingly, this one doesn’t hurt half as much as a lot of others. She needed to go!
Money well spent my butt. They could have kept James on cleaning leaves off storm drains or something until her contract was over. I can’t disagree she was causing a toxic environment, but now the City seems to just be re-living the past before James arrived. Things were a mess then, how is this new/old direction an improvement, except of course for all those people that have received promotions and pay raises over the last couple of months. I think more house cleaning still needs to take place on the 5th floor before real change is possible.
It is never easy to get rid of high officials. That’s why its a big deal.
Sadly this is the cost of doing business whether you agree with it or not
I personally don’t agree with it but this is a very common practice with city administrations across the province and Canada bitch, whine and moan all you want but this practise will not change any time soon
There is no doubt that James needed to go, and there is a cost attached to that, however it needed to be done.
Problem is we also had a number of other people who were let go under James’s regime, and the attendant packages for these people. Previous to James we let Derek Bates City Manager, go, with all the pay out that involved, and we shouldn’t forget Tim McEwan from Initiative’s Prince George.
All these buy outs over the past 4/5 years have cost us huge dollars, and we are no further ahead. We need to look at the buy outs, if for no other reason than to see what they have cost us, and then we need to look at the decision making, that
A. Led to the hiring of these people and
B. Led to the firing of these people.
To suggest that over the past 10/15 years that City Hall was out of control would be an understatement. We still have some serious problems that need to be addressed.
As an aside, has anyone noticed that all the high priced people we hire in Prince George all leave once they retire, or get a buy out. These are the same people who tell us how great this City is when they are on the payroll, and who cant get out of dodge fast enough once the pay cheque stops.
Have a nice day.
Are senior administrators leaving PG when they retire? When they are fired it is understandable that they would leave because they are looking for a new job, which will generally have to be somewhere else, and even if they are retirement age and could just take retirement, they may want to leave a please where there is bad blood. The test is whether people who voluntarily retire stay in PG.
If you quit or get fired there should be NO severance packages….
The problem you have is who comes up with these ridiculous salaries. You have managers ,fire chiefs etc. making more money than the president of United States. Same old story-hard to find good qualified people which I will say BS on that one.
Democracy is a participants sport if you don’t have a team you cant win. If you only have a 32% participation at election time you have a big problem.
Mayor green got $80.00 for campaign funds for the mayors chair . She had the full support of the business community. They brag and make all kinds of promises during the campaign but when elected it its another scene and they have to perform and generally their promised disappear.
The chair of an organization is the facilitator and not a dictator. The ideas come from the floor not from the chair. There may be a lot of bickering and dissuasion and then you vote. That’s how democracy works. If you don’t have participation you don’t have democracy.
Cheers
PVal as usual you comments are idiotic. That is the point of severance! When you are brought in by one mayor and council to do a job and the winds change and the new mayor and his minions no longer like the color of your shoes they give you your walking papers. That is the reason why these folks negotiate a severance package is because they serve at the whim of a fickle bunch of people and are aware of it coming into the job.
Yes unfortunately being fired or laid off, the employer does need to offer severance, its simply the law. The amount of compensation varies. depending on what is written into the contract as well as how much it cost to shush them up!!!!!
So, James is gone and the debate goes on!
I somehow think that this has a much to do with Hall and his new crew kissing CUPE’s butt as anything else!
I get rather tired of hearing about the “toxic” workplace at the City. Our unionized workforce enjoys a wage and benefits package that ranks as one of the richest in the province. Almost 30 years with wage/benefits increase! Take that, private sector! Take that, taxpayers!!
I’ve been steadfast in my belief that we are long overdue for a review and rationalization of our Public Sector, be it Federal, Provincial or Municipal, the work that they do and the services that they provide.
For far too long, CUPE seems to have had things their way at City Hall. Administration after administration after administration failed to stand up for the taxpayer, instead opting to cave in to the wishes and demands of the Union! Whose running this show, the City or the Union?
So, we finally got an administration that was willing and seemingly able to finally take a stand against the constant demands of CUPE! The toxic work environment seems to be nothing more than the Union and it’s membership losing some control and no longer running the show!! If that’s what CUPE defines as a toxic work environment, well then I’m all for it!
If things are or were so bad at the City, we would see workers resigning in droves, but we don’t see that! Instead, we see our new Mayor and Council getting rid of the people that were put in place to shake things up at City Hall. City Hall was long, very long overdue for a shake up, a shake up that CUPE certainly was opposed to.
So, who runs City Hall now? Looks like it’s back in the hands of CUPE, because our Mayor and Council don’t have the gonads to stand up to them!
This is just my opinion! Somehow I think there is a bit more truth to all of this than many would have us believe!
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Why can’t the City just provide severance pay as prescribed by the BC Employment Standards Act? According to this Act, the following would apply:
“To calculate the amount of severance pay an employee is entitled to receive, multiply the employee’s regular wages for a regular work week by the sum of:
the number of completed years of employment; and the number of completed months of employment divided by 12 for a year that is not completed. The maximum amount of severance pay required to be paid under the ESA is 26 weeks.”
So James should only be paid out half of her annual salary as severance pay… seems straight forward to me. I hope this doesn’t end up being another Tim McEwan; $400,000 golden handshake at us taxpayer’s expanse.
Cluestick aks -> Why can’t the City just provide severance pay as prescribed by the BC Employment Standards Act?
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The answer is simple, because no ‘qualified’ and ‘selected’ candidate would accept the job with those restrictions … the job is subject to the winds of political change, not a normal condition of employment …
billposer says -> even if they are retirement age and could just take retirement, they may want to leave a please where there is bad blood. The test is whether people who voluntarily retire stay in PG.
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People of retirement age leave Prince George because of many reasons; weather, health care, family … because they didn’t get along with their previous employer is probably pretty far down the list.
@ anotherside; four hundred thousand dollar ($400,000) severance pay package it is then!
We should have kept James on staff until her contract expired! With a small reassignment, we would have had the best paid janitor in BC!! At least that would have given us better value than the golden handshakes that seem to be the norm!
Tim McEwen mowing lawns, James cleaning toilets, Todd Corrigall sweeping sidewalks! Way better use of our tax dollars than the Golden Handshakes!
By the way, looks like Dragonmaster dropped his soother from his high chair and he can’t reach it. Would someone please pick it up, rinse it off and give it back to him so that the crying will stop, haha!! ;-)
Hart guy – are you kidding? In ten minutes the union rep would be in town demanding that we pay all of our janitors that much! :P
Hart Guy
That would be considered cruel and unusual punishment as they would be forced to join the union. That being said they are self starters and highly motivated people-taxpayers would get value for money even with higher salaries.
Oh…It will take more than a soother to plug that gaping maw!
Man, I forgot about the Union! Me, of all people! Go figure!
FYI the max severance under the BC ESA is 8 week’s pay, not 26. Those who think keeping James at work and reassigning her to menial work, an idea which would likely be found by the courts to be “wro gful dismissal” and likely attract a greater payment than was negotiated. Perhaps some real research before pontificating would be in order.
Administration after administration after administration failed to stand up for the taxpayer, instead opting to cave in to the wishes and demands of the Union! Whose running this show, the City or the Union?
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The union never pretends to run the city it merrily looks after the days pay employees.
I guess you would be happy if we paid the employees a minimum wage and kiss but all day. Most are trained for the job they do. Would you like them to clear the snow with a and shovel . That’s what you would get if you maid them poorly. so stop whining about union employees and get a life.
FYI the max severance under the BC ESA is 8 week’s pay, not 26. Those who think keeping James at work and reassigning her to menial work, an idea which would likely be found by the courts to be “constructive dismissal” and likely attract a greater payment than was negotiated. Perhaps some real research before pontificating would be in order.
Making a senior administrator such as the City Manager do janitorial work would certainly be considered a major alteration in the terms of her contract and therefore constructive dismissal. That is, if she then quit, she would successfully argue that she had effectively been fired.
The real damage and the real cost to us has little to do with this little bit of severance and perks as she leaves our fair city. I am happy we can move on and have lots of good things to look forward to. Lesson learned I hope.
Maybe it’s time to make all management jobs redundant and pay them by the hour like union employees. They would have to work a lot of overtime to make the salary that they are getting now. Another thing make sure they use a time clock.
For the record maximum severance pay in BC is eight weeks pay, my reference to 26 weeks was from the Federal Government Ministry of Labour website.
Just thought of it . What do you think a fair hourly rate for managers of the City? Maybe could check some other places like Wal-mart,Canadian Tire, Home Depot etc. Remember it’s not hard to find someone that would take these jobs on and don’t forget the probationary period.
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2015 @ 9:58 AM by P Val
If you quit or get fired there should be NO severance packages….
When should someone get a severance package then? The only other way to leave a job is to retire or die.
I’m not defending James or the administration that brought her here by any means! We, Prince George, got suckered pretty hard and, personally, I feel played by James and Green like guy who just got mugged by two bratty teenagers. But severance packages are very much necessary when you want to attract qualified individuals.
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