Council agrees to adding staff

The City of Yorkton will be adding to staff after Council revisited staffing requests tabled from its 2015 budget deliberations.

Through the 2015 Budget deliberations Administration identified five separate employee addition requests for Council to approve, detailed a report circulated at the regular meeting of Council Monday.

“At the Sept. 8, 2014 Council meeting the 2015 Operating Budget was approved with the understanding that the additional staffing requests be brought back to Council for approval prior to advertising and hiring of the positions,” said Shannon Bell, Director of Finance with the City.

The five positions identified included a full time I.T. Technical Analyst ($61,790), increasing a Seasonal Open Spaces position to full time ($15,665), adding an additional Summer Student Labourer with Deer Park ($10,855), increasing the hours of an Event Co-ordinator with the Gallagher Centre ($3,081) and changing a Casual Cemetery & Marketing Assistant to a Permanent position ($0 to operating budget as the Cemetery is a self-sufficient operation and the funding will come from the Cemetery fund), continued the report.

Councillor Chris Wyatt said he could not support the recommendation because of its long term implications.

“When you add these positions they’re there for life,” he said, adding in his 14 years on Council a full-time position has never been eliminated.

However City Manager Lonnie Kaal said a growing city requires more city staff.

“As we grow it takes more people to look after that growth,” she said.

In terms of the IT position, the largest single salary among the positions, Mayor Bob Maloney said it is an area Yorkton is behind.

“As a city we are significantly behind the curve when it comes to IT.” He said. “I think we’re behind in many respects.”

The recommendations to add the staff was passed, but Wyatt was the opposing vote.