Council should examine needs before going on a hiring spree
By Lethbridge Herald on November 2, 2022.
Editor:
After reading The Lethbridge Herald’s report on the budget requests from the different administrative departments I can see why the homeowners of Lethbridge – me included – are looking at a 3.77 per cent increase in taxes in each of the next four years.
It seems like there are a lot of 0.5 full-time equivalent staff that many of the departments want to move into a full-time position – one of which is the Communication and Engagement Evolution section that will cost us $1,273,800 over the next four years.
I wonder how many positions are in that area now and what is the Engagement Evolution and if needed, why can’t this be off-loaded to a less busy administration group?
I think it is time for the mayor and council to have an outside independent firm review current job positions – what is needed to run our city and what is merely optics.
Another major concern of mine is giving Opportunity Lethbridge staff access to a fund that will provide financial incentives to support various initiatives at a cost to us taxpayers of $4,231,400 over a four-year period.
These various initiatives must come to council for individual consideration.
I hope the council will explore better use of current City Hall staff before going on a hiring spree.
Grant R. Harrington
Lethbridge
11-10
Agreed. Time for a witch hunt through City Hall. Calgary did this some years back, to the great benefit of the City taxpayer.
Too many innocuous, redundant positions in City Hall, all of them struggling to justify their existence.
Agree wholeheartedly Grant. Further, the following link provides an interesting take on home prices and how the housing bubble across the country has burst. However, I am quite positive that those at the “bowl” will profoundly claim that Lethbridge is an exception. There was a conversation on FB with one of the counsellors and once the subject of waiting for assessments to come out before setting the mill rate was brought up, the conversation was over. Interesting!!!
https://link.postmedia.com/view/5c80212f2c885e210c1bc4f4hlq9s.d6x/6a67f1dc