Penny Wise Pound Foolish

A letter appeared taking the Town of Newmarket to task for having no evening recreation programs for children. The Town of Aurora on the other hand was commended by the Newmarket mother for the variety of programs offered here..

During Leisure Services budget discussions staff are cross-examined like culprits on the practice of hiring of part-time staff and incurring overtime costs. Explanations keep being repeated but the same questions are asked year after year.

When the above referenced letter was brought to Council's attention, I thought it would be an opportunity to establish the advantages of using part-time staff in preference to full-time for leisure programs. .

Children's programs historically have a high registration, especially pre-school. Additional program times have to be created to take care of the wait listed applicants.They are run by part-time staff and the high return rate of registrants attest to their hard work and popularity of the programs.

They are offered in many different locations; town facilities, schools and community businesses.
Space is increasingly becoming an issue with increased demand for more and new initiatives. But the part-time staff make it work.

When programs are planned, analysis forms are used to determine what the fees must be to
break even . No programs are run unless they break even or make a profit for the department.
Leisure Services 2008 came in at $340 thousand under budget.

In 2009, increased part-time and seasonal staff for parks are being dis-allowed.

There are increased parks and sports fields. They take care of boulevards and round abouts. Street trees and woodlots. The War memorial is their responsibility. They help out the Regional Food Network, The Arboretum. They shoulder the whole burden for Sheppard's Bush and many other places too numerous to list

Seasonal employees come with a variety of skills. Beautification projects are completed at minimal cost because of employee versatility. Full-time employees cost the town an additional thirty-per-cent over salary for benefits.Seasonal employees have no benefits.

Parks Manager, Jim Tree has been with the Town of Aurora since he and Norm Weller were the parks department. Street trees ( urban forest) maintenance and planting are his responsibility. During winter, his staff build park benches picnic tables and garbage holders.They operate a paint shop. They build nothing without checking out first what a comparable item would cost to buy.

We keep adding wood lots to our inventory. We haven't done wood lot management since we have had them but we keep hoping to get the staff to allow that to happen. Trails are also Parks' department responsibility.

Jim Tree hires students during school vacations and six month seasonal employees. He has requested several extra this year . He did an organisational study to precisely determine the man hours needed to perform the work required. Even with his budget request , he would still be undermanned. His recommendations were rejected.

We have a $712 thousand budget for Church Street School. We have an " environmental initiatives" engineer in the town works department. We will grant $10.thousand "patronage" to vendors in the Farmer's Market, We will give the Historical Society $50.thousand to hire a curator for a house that's only open by appointment in the tourist season.

We have increased revenue from growth in assessment , revenue from user fees of sport fields and other park facilities.

There will be an increase in taxes but we will not be investing what's needed to maintain our parks and public spaces to a proper standard during the months when Aurora families enjoy them the most. And they do use them