Calgary city council overtime bill pegged at $10,000 per meeting

[speedog]

Global News article - link.

Calgary city council overtime bill pegged at $10,000 per meeting

CALGARY – Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he wasn’t surprised, and Councillor Peter Demong admitted “it’s a lot of money” when it comes to the overtime bill for city council meetings, pegged at $10,000 per session that goes long—sometimes as late as 9:30 p.m.

The city’s chief financial officer came up with the figure based on overtime costs by 21 staffers; it doesn’t include time put in by managers.

“This is part of the process of democracy, you’ve got to be able to have everyone have their say and voice their opinions,” said Demong.

Councillor Ward Sutherland suggests spending more time at city committee meetings, so that by the time matters go to council there will be fewer questions.

“We need to limit our time, and we need to take the advice of the committees, because they do a lot of the work, and that would help save some money,” said Sutherland.

This has most likely been happening for decades and well before this current council came to be.

But now that it has come to light, I firmly believe this current council needs to act in a responsible fashion and address some of the issues that get these meetings into an overtime scenario. One thing they can fix is to move the whole secondary suite decision making process to a city department somewhere - having our council debate individual suite applications is absolutely ludicrous IMHO.. If Nenshi and Farrell can't fix this or don't have the stomach to fix this one issue, then my vote will go to credible non-slate candidates next election - yeah, I voted for them last election but like I've said before, they both have their warts and all.

[88CRX]

Originally posted by speedog
One thing they can fix is to move the whole secondary suite decision making process to a city department somewhere - having our council debate individual suite applications is absolutely ludicrous IMHO..

Came to post this exact same thing.

The fact that council meeting are littered with what seems like 75% secondary suite approvals nearly every time they meet is ridiculous.

[Xtrema]

Now they can't drink, they ain't working late.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[CanmoreOrLess]

Make everyone stand during the meeting. This practice took our hour long meetings down to less than twenty minutes and just as successful as the wasted hour.

[suntan]

Originally posted by CanmoreOrLess
Make everyone stand during the meeting. This practice took our hour long meetings down to less than twenty minutes and just as successful as the wasted hour.

Why do you hate Nenshi's ankles?

[HiTempguy1]

$10k in OT costs?

Hell, I won't/can't post our charge rates, but if my company had a meeting with 10 intermediate/senior people we could blow throw that pretty quick.

That actually seems reasonable considering OT is a poor choice of wording considering the councillors aren't making extra money as they are salaried (or they better f*&kin be lol).

[speedog]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
What a bunch of drama queens, they should just go hang out in the public library or at Druh's place when the end of the day comes until they can come to an agreement. Maybe get a little Blotto while they are off the clock.


Can we change the thread title btw?
I am thinking "Talk is Cheap, Unless you are Nenshi"

I think I'll leave my thread title as it is (I like it the way I titled it) - this isn't just about Nenshi despite how much you would like it to be. This is a problem that this whole council is contributing to and it's most likely been a problem that's been around from long before many of these current council members were voted into their positions. Take your blinders off, Sugarphreak, and see the problem for what it is and maybe, just maybe, offer up some plausible solutions.

[C_Dave45]

Might help if they stopped wasting tax payers' money by not talking about useless trivial shit like the names of adult slo-pitch teams!!

I can only imagine what these meetings are like. Back when I used to be pretty involved in the tile setters' union, I used to attend every meeting and I would have some pertinent issues to be brought up. (union members sitting at home, while temporary permit holders were working...non payment of overtime monies, etc etc). But the majority of those in attendance were old timers who would be half asleep during the entire meeting until anyone said the one magic word..."PENSION". Well then all hell would break loose and these guys would go on and on and ON about a subject that wasn't even relevant to current issues. But they would just sit and ARGUE about it incessantly. Somehow that's the image I see when they talk about these council meetings.

[msommers]

The hilarity of any regular posting users complaining here is that they'd be pissed if they stayed until 8pm or later without compensation or at least recognition. And yet spend how many hours complaining and bullshitting online during company time

[speedog]

You're a bit off the mark here, msommers, as some us have given much of our own time in the past to various organizations without compensation and still do.

[msommers]

Volunteer work is not what I mean. Running your store is not what I mean. Consulting on your own schedule is not what I mean. I mean working directly as an employee and the situation I described, as council are essentially employees of Calgary.

I just picture someone sitting at their desk reading Beyond at 2 in the afternoon getting all worked up about OT hours being paid using tax dollars, and then being asked to stay late on salaried paid to finish things up and be annoyed by it. That's not directed at anyone, but I can certainly see it happening, it's just hilarious the hypocrisy that runs so rampant with regards to government. Like do people honestly think council wants to be there until 9:30 at night? We might think they're blowhards with their thumbs up their asses wasting time but they're people too wanting to go home to their families and tuck their kids in.

Though I'm sure their use of time could be more efficient, I don't know the details so really I can't comment one way or the other about council.

I just find it funny how some folks working public sector are expected to do everything for nothing and get grilled otherwise. But I'm not condoning wasting time, obviously. I don't think I'm describing myself properly, but I'm tired haha.

[Cos]

.

[speedog]

Whoosh, sorry.