PARRY SOUND – The town is taking advantage of upcoming retirements to save taxpayers some money.
Plans are already underway to reconfigure several of the town’s departments.
The rejigging is expected to save the town roughly $100,000.
“We have a number of staff retirements – five – that’s really what’s driven this, along with opportunities to be more efficient and saving money,” said town CAO Rob Mens last week.
Four hires are planned to replace some of those positions.
The five retiring senior staff members are: Brenda Dobson town director of finance and Provincial Offenses Act court services retires at the end of December; Iain Laing, director of community development retires in September; Donna Besman, manager of administration retires in August; Terry Brown, manager of water systems retires in November; and fire chief Laurence Green retires in May.
Last year the town removed the Director of Emergency Services position.
“We combined the position of Director (of Emergency Services) and fire chief. There’s going to be a Director of Emergency and Protective Services/Fire Chief,” said Mens.
When Dobson retires, the town will hire a new director of finance.
On January 1, the town made some changes to its HR department.
“It used to be the Department of Finance and Administration, which included HR. Now it’s just going to be Finance without HR, that will come under my office,” Mens said. “We’re not going to hire a new HR manager (currently under Besman). We’re going to reassign all the HR functions. Some will be contracted out.”
Following Laing’s retirement, his department, which currently looks after planning, building and bylaw, won’t have a director position, just a planner, Mens said.
“So it won’t be someone at a director level. We will put planning and building (departments) in a new department, which is Lynn (Middaugh’s) department, which was economic development and leisure services; it’s now going to be development and leisure services. We’re going to have building, planning, economic development and leisure services (department) all under one person, instead of two people. The bylaw (department) is going to go to what was Emergency Services, it’s now going to be called Emergency and Protective Services.”