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There are two new positions proposed in the 2026 budget: one in the Clerk’s department and one 30-hour/ week position in Recreation.
Human Resources Kayla Best updated council on staffing levels. She showed numbers from the past three years, and also comparisons by department to two other unnamed municipalities. Southgate’s numbers were large, similar to the others, and sometimes in the middle between the two.
She cautioned although the municipality to municipality comparisons for staff numbers are often asked about, there’s a lot of variation – for example in number of kilometres of road and whether that’s urban or rural.
She noted that other municipalities have a “Director” level of staffing that Southgate has not fully implemented.
Staff keeps the township compliant with legislation, carries the administrative burden and delivers services, including emergency service.
Recent challenges include multiple changes in provincial legislation that the township must implement. Taxpayers’ expectations are more now than in the past, but the costs of delivering services is rising.
Ms Best observed that the township is seeing fewer applicants for specialized roles, and some staff are in the age bracket for upcoming retirement.
On the positive side, she said that Southgate’s retention level has improved.
The staffing structure has been examined to find more efficient ways of combining responsibilities. Even while doing this, workloads continue to increase as the municipality grows. “Something has to give, eventually,” she observed.
The administration for Roads, Waste, Water and Wastewater has been all falling to one administrative position.
The proposal is to split that Public Works Admin in two, just as the Manager positions were split previously, so that one co-ordinator would handle roads and waste, and another water and wastewater. That meant shifting some jobs from the utility billing person to other departments – such as canine and rec bookings.
Another shift is to promote a water operator to Team Leader, and then hire another water operator part-way through 2026. All this will help in succession planning in the department.
An existing roads operator will be promoted to team leader, and a gap in the workforce will be addressed through casual operators.
In the Clerks department, multiple issues are causing the workload to multiply. The township has taken over cemeteries, which have a large administrative aspect – purchasing of plots and burials. As legislation changes it falls to the clerk to update township policies accordingly. With the elimination of the communication position, the website and communications have reverted to the clerk. The office also handles legal matters such as land sales and agreements. Also, 2026 is an election year.
It used to be 10 marriage licences a year, but at the time of the meeting there were more than 50 issued. The Freedom of Information request is a legislated fee of $5. She said there has not been an increase in volume, but in the content of the requests to process, review and redact as necessary. There is a search time charge applied.
The proposal is to add a Co-ordinator position to the Clerk’s department. There has been a half-time contract position shared between finance and clerks, which will be used to provide election support. It was noted that the clerk’s department had actually gone down in its staffing previously because of a shift.
Recreation was one of the few things that the survey showed public would support adding costs. The proposal is to add a 30 hour/week position to support Programming Coordinator and the grass-cutting in Dundalk would be moved in-house to remove the cost of the contract. Software for recreation booking is also included in the budget.
A shift in Building and Bylaw is proposed to take the Building Administrative Assistant and move that role into a Building & By-Law Coordinator.
In library, the proposal is to increase the part-time position hours to take on more responsibility in adult programming to free the library CEO to put more time into the strategic management role.
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