The Municipality of Cumberland is taking the next step in implementing its Clear the Deck initiative which will put the municipality on the path to thinking and acting as one municipal unit.
During its October regular meeting, council accepted and approved the recommendations within the Clear the Deck report that was announced last winter and presented in late July.
It is also allocating $200,000 from its reserves to retain external consulting services to develop implementation priorities.
Council also accepted the municipality’s new organizational charts and approved the creation of four new positions - recreation programmer, director of planning and development, safety officer and procurement officer - as part of the organizational restructuring.
Critical to achieving the outcomes within the implementation plan will be the retainment of consulting services for four major components at an approximate cost of $50,000 each.
This process will include the development of an asset management plan; a service review – including recommending service boundaries, standards and rates; a bylaw and policy review for redundances and a subsequent gap analysis and human resource services to create position descriptions for new positions as well as reviewing and updating existing position descriptions to reflect new responsibilities.
The current budget was reviewed to create four additional FTEs (full-time equivalents) annually, for a recreation programmer, director of planning and development, safety officer and procurement officer.
For the remainder of the 2022-23 fiscal year, the four FTEs will be covered through savings from current vacancies.
The recreation programmer position will be covered by reducing the number of seasonal recreation and parks student positions, that have been difficult to fill for several years.
The remaining positions will be covered through a combination of water utility cost-sharing and overall administrative savings.
Financial implications for the rest of this fiscal year will be $200,000 from reserves for the consulting services.
All additional costs will be funded by reallocations within the existing budget.
The municipality will be issuing a more detailed media release on the initiative in the coming days.