The city is shaking up its management team, rearranging civic departments and expanding its footprint inside the Orillia City Centre.
The changes come in the wake of the Municipal Core Service and Organizational Review and Strategic Plan project completed by the city in late 2019.
“I am really excited about these future-focused changes taking place at the city throughout 2020,” Gayle Jackson, the city’s CAO, told OrilliaMatters.
“I know they will continue to set up the city for success now and into the future.”
Several city departments are being shuffled into different portfolios. Essentially, five large departments are being created. They are:
- Development Services and Engineering;
- Environment and Infrastructure Services;
- Corporate Services/Legal;
- Community Services; and
- Business Development, Communications and Strategic Initiatives
Each of those will have a “general manager” overseeing the multiple departments within.
“The municipal sector is ever changing and as such the municipal administration needs to change,” said Jackson.
“We looked at how we could reimagine positions and departments to better align with council’s strategic goals and service-delivery mandates without adding significant resources,” she explained of the process.
“It certainly creates efficiencies by grouping city functions and divisions together in order to realize synergies in service delivery and resources.”
Staff learned during four town-hall meetings at City Hall that the structural changes have prompted some staffing moves.
“Yes, some staff will move within departments and some job functions will change,” Jackson explained. “For example, Legislative Services is moving to Development Services and Engineering and merging with the Building staff led by Shawn Crawford. This is an example of how we sought to find synergies and create efficiencies between roles and responsibilities.”
The moves also alter the makeup of the city’s leadership team.
“The new future-focused organizational structure streamlines the city’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT),” said Jackson, noting the city’s fire chief and treasurer are no longer part of the SLT.
“Certain positions were re-created; certain positions were eliminated.”
She said the “streamlining of the SLT allowed us to invest resources into reimagined positions that meet the changing needs and responsibilities of the municipality. Recent and impending retirements, along with positions becoming vacant, allowed for meaningful changes to be implemented without having to add significant resources.”
As a result of the changes, the municipality has recently put out a call for resumes for a pair of new positions: General Manager of Corporate Services/Legal and Director of Business Development, Communications and Strategic Initiatives.
Jackson said the new General Manager of Corporate Services/Legal will provide oversight to a number of large functions within the organization including Financial Services, Clerks, Information Technology and Real Estate.
“As a lawyer, this person will be able to provide in-house legal advice, which was identified in the Core Service and Organization Review as an area the city was lacking,” said Jackson, noting “this position will be a key member of the city’s SLT and will serve the corporation well.”
She said the salary range for the new position is $161,434 to $188,855.
The Director of Business Development, Communications and Strategic Initiatives will oversee the economic development, communications, marketing, tourism and strategic initiatives functions of the city.
The new staffer will replace Richard Bertolo, the current Director of Business Development, whose contract will end once the new position is filled.
“This (new) position takes an existing department head position and expands its areas of oversight to create synergies and efficiencies, while also streamlining the city’s SLT,” said Jackson, noting the salary range for this position is $115,945 to $145,447.
Despite the creation of the new positions, Jackson said taxpayers won’t be impacted.
“We are able to complete these recruitments and implement the organization structure changes without any impact to the 2020 tax levy,” said Jackson. “This was possible as a result of salary gapping and not filling vacant staff positions until they were fully evaluated within the context of the reorganization.”
On Monday night, city council also approved Jackson’s request to take over about 3,000-square-feet of office space on the first floor of the City Centre that has become vacant. (The decision is subject to ratification Monday night).
In a report tabled at the council committee meeting this week, Jackson noted “municipal administration space is at, if not beyond, capacity.”
“Due to office vacancies within City Centre and the recent staff reorganization, staff felt it was prudent to bring this issue forward,” noted her report.
The city moved into 50 Andrew St. S. in 1997. Historically, administrative offices were on the third floor. However, over the last few years, corporate reception and Economic Development were moved to the first floor.
The now vacant suite on the first floor is just down the hall from the economic development office.
Councillors approved spending up to $50,000 for new carpet and painting of the space and moving expenses.
The move also will mean a loss of revenue to the city. The former tenant was paying about $63,000 annually to the city to rent the space.
The total square footage of the City Centre is 77,262 square-feet. At present, municipal staff occupy 38,603 square feet of this space; that includes boardrooms and the council chamber.
The extra space will be well used by the municipality, said Jackson.
“As the City of Orillia continues to develop and grow, so do the requirements of the municipality,” she said. “We are looking at the availability of space on the City Centre’s first floor as an opportunity to improve our customer service to residents and businesses.
“Currently a lot of our administration functions are housed on the third floor of City Centre and by potentially reconfiguring existing space we can better deliver services to our residents and businesses.”
It’s not yet been determined what city department will move into the new space.
NEW STRUCTURE
The following is a high-level overview of the organizational changes:
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Corporate Services/Legal Department
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Clerks, Financial Services, Information Technology and Real Estate.
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Community Services Department
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Parks Planning and Development, Youth, Recreation and Culture.
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Environment and Infrastructure Services Department
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Municipal Infrastructure, Environment, Water/Wastewater/Stormwater, Operations and Solid Waste.
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Business Development, Communications and Strategic Initiatives Department
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Economic Development, Corporate Communications, Marketing, Tourism and Strategic Initiatives.
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Development Services and Engineering Department
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Transit, Corporate Engineering, Planning, Housing, Legislative Services, including Building and By-Law.
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