After a two-year pilot project, two contract bylaw officer positions in Timmins are being hired full-time.
In 2016, council approved hiring an additional full-time officer, as well as two, two-year contract positions.
“Part of that two-year pilot project was to ensure that the positions were basically self-sustaining. Although we’ve had some complications over the two years, basically the pilot project did prove to be a success and the positions were in fact self-sustaining,” said clerk Steph Palmateer.
Monday, council approved turning the two contract enforcement positions into full-time positions.
The city has tracked the tickets issued by the new position and contract workers.
In 2016, 2,654 tickets generating $60,942 in revenue were issued. In 2017, 5,657 tickets brought in $179,190. So far this year, 898 tickets worth $63,975 have been issued.
The cost to the city for wages and benefits for the positions was $89,175 in 2016, and $125,980 in 2017.
While there was a deficit of $11,262 in 2016 due to the “training time and learning curve,” a staff report shows a surplus of $68,268 for the first full year of the positions in 2017. Overall, the report states the trial period surplus to date is $57,005.
Coun. Walter Wawrzaszek has concerns about when the officers start work.
“I remember when this came to council, there was supposed to be some change of hours — did we ever take those change of hours because they had to deal with public works? We wanted them to start as the same time as public works so they can move some vehicles or whatever,” he said.
For example, Wawrzaszek explained that if public works starts at 7:30 a.m. and an enforcement officer's shift starts at 8:30 a.m., public works could wait until 9 a.m. for support.
“Unfortunately that does happen on occasion, but typically public works is good at notifying us ahead of time that they’re going to require enforcement services support for their operations,” Palmateer said.
If there is notice, Palmateer said officers can be scheduled early, however that are cases when the co-ordination doesn’t work out.
Mayor Steve Black added that the time to renegotiate is during collective bargaining.
“In order to do that outside that cycle, we ask for a memorandum of understanding to amend the collective agreement, which they refused,” said Black.
Read the full council report here.
