Due to staffing shortages in the recreation department, the city has cancelled its summer public skating program for July and August.
Prior to the pandemic, the city offered Saturday and Sunday public skating sessions at Rotary Place, but the program is being put on hold until September.
A staff report states the city has experienced "significant shortages" of recreation staff since public health restrictions were lifted in March, but recreation program supervisor Megan Visser said there are enough staff to maintain its other programs.
“Overall, throughout coming back since the pandemic, we've felt the staffing shortages, but have been able to kind of maintain our current program,” she told OrilliaMatters.
“We've been able to keep our head above water, but it's definitely a concern, and I think everyone's kind of feeling it in every sort of sector," Visser said.
“This is the first program that we've had to cancel, but we're looking forward to bringing it back in the fall,” she said. “This is not a permanent thing by any means. We are hoping to bring it back next summer and hopefully we'll have more staffing by then.”
Part of the reason the city decided to cancel summer public skating is due to increased staffing needs with its other summer programs, such as day camp.
“Especially with the summer, we do offer our day camps and we open up the beaches, so a lot of our programming staff and even our aquatic staff move from one area to the next for that full-time work,” Visser explained.
“That kind of pulls from our existing staff complement, so that's where we're feeling the shortages," she explained.
“We're back to operating as usual, and we've seen a big increase in registration, so camp is definitely flourishing. But with that comes the need for more staff, so we've kind of pulled all our staff into day camp, which kind of limits what they can do on the weekend," she noted.
Visser said the city has enough recreation staff to operate close to normal, but it does not have a large enough complement to fill in for people who might call in sick or go on vacation.
“We have just enough (staff) to offer what we normally, typically do,” she said. "If people call in sick or staff need a vacation or a holiday, it's becoming increasingly difficult to fill those backfill positions,” she said.
With casual positions, the city experiences high turnover rates, Visser said, adding the municipality is not eceiving the same volume of applications as it had in the past.
“Especially with casual staff, we have such high turnover,” she said. “(An employee) will get a new opportunity or leave for school, and then we're scrambling to find someone to fill in, and there's just not the same amount of applications coming in for these positions as we normally would have.”
