City of Duncan spending too much on bylaw officers
Up to Feb. 28 of 2019, the City of Duncan hired the CDN Corps of Commissionaires on a yearly contract that supplied staff to enforce the City of Duncan bylaws. Total cost of the contract for the year 2018 was $79,111.84, plus GST. On March 1, 2019, the City of Duncan hired their own bylaw officers.
There is presently three bylaw officers in the City of Duncan being paid a union rate of pay under the CUPE 358 contract. The CUPE contract lists three wage rates for these officers. Rates of pay are $25.47 per hour, $28.65 per hour and $33.11 per hour. Officers work 7.5 hours per day for 22 days each month which is 165 hours per month times 12 months equals 1,980 hours of work per year. Vacation per year is 10 working days which is 75 hours. Subtract the 75 hours from the 1,980 hours of work per year and net hours of work is 1,915 hours per year. Bylaw officer one is paid $25.47 times 1,915 hours for a yearly salary of $48,775.05. Bylaw officer two is paid $28.65 times 1,915 hours for a yearly salary of $54,864.75. Bylaw officer three is paid $33.11 times 1,915 hours for a yearly salary of $63,405.65. Total cost for these bylaw officers is $167,045.45 per year. That works out to a 111.1 per cent increase over what City of Duncan paid to the Commissionaires. This does not include the added benefits that have to been paid by the city for vacation pay, at four per cent, Work Safe, at 2.19 per cent, CPP matching employee portion and unemployment insurance, at 1.4 per cent times the employee share, and group insurance plan. Also the $167,045.45 will be included in total wages and taxed at 1.95 per cent for the employer health care tax.
Now that we have the numbers, the question is why isn’t the newly city employee bylaw officers doing the same job functions as was done with the Commissionaires. That is when the city employed the commissionaires, they patrolled St. Julian and Festubert Streets for parking violations. Presently the newly city employed officers are not patrolling St. Julian and Festubert Streets, on a regular basis, whereas the Commissionaires did.
In summary, $87,933.61 more of taxpayer dollars being spent with less work being done, was a bad decision. Total revenue from parking and bylaw infractions was $20,527 in 2019, $19,080 in 2018, $23,795 in 2017, and $23,830 in 2016. Taxpayers, this is your money being spent. The above shows that paying a contract to the Commissionaires $6,592.65 per month with Commissionaires in comparison $13,920.45 for city own employees, not including extra costs in benefits was a better deal of spending taxpayer dollars.
The job of city council is to manage city taxpayer dollars in the best way possible. Amazing how your elected city council can spend taxpayer dollars foolishly, but never spend money foolishly when spending their own money in their own personal lives. Unbelievable!
Joe Sawchuk
Duncan