City council got its first taste of the highly anticipated core services review on Monday night.
Oscar Poloni, from KPMG’s Sudbury office, is the Lead Partner for the Service Delivery and Operational Review of the City of Timmins. He was on hand at city council to explain what exactly his organization is doing, and what role councillors will have during the process.
Poloni explained how KPMG did an initial survey of council members.
“The purpose of this was to get some sense as to where council was in terms of your thoughts with respect to change. It’s not binding on us. We are going to look at what we’re going to look at. What this really is intended to do though is to see where council’s appetites lie,” said Poloni.
He went into great detail about what he calls a six step process.
Those steps can be summarized as follows:
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Initial presentation for council, setting everything up and making sure everyone understands it.
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An inventory of the municipality. What Timmins does? Why they do it? How many people they have doing it? What does it cost? And how does the city pay for it?
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Comparative analysis. Benchmarking Timmins against other similar sized municipalities.
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Organizational design review. Can departments use resources and communicate more efficiently? Is there too many levels?
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A presentation of opportunities for savings or improvements to core services.
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Council direction. KPMG will sit down with council to decide what they will support and what they will not support. This will give city staff a clear picture when it is time for the next budget.
He talked about how important an efficiently run municipality is to everyone.
“The reality is this. Almost everything that your residents do from the moment they get up, to the moment they go to bed, is touched by something that this city does,” said Poloni.
He said they’ve also chosen specific local organizations to contribute perspectives including the Timmins Chamber of Commerce, the Timmins BIA, and the Timmins Taxpayers Association.
“We want council to be able to make informed decisions, and that’s the purpose of the consultations,” said Poloni.
He explained to council that when KPMG highlights opportunities for savings, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily be implemented.
“If it survives the service review, it then moves to budget. Budget is where council makes the final call. Nothing is final until council approves it either for this year’s budget, or for future year’s budget, because you need to recognize you can’t just flip a switch and change everything,”
He said KPMG will involve council at appropriate times and insists it’s in everyone’s best interest to be as honest and co-operative as possible during the process.
“I am big on transparency. I don’t need to talk to your staff to do a service review. I don’t need to talk to the board of the TEDC to come up with options for the TEDC, and frankly council, I don’t necessarily need to talk to you to come with options. You get better results if you’re open and transparent. The reality is this, you have a taxpayers association. People will be watching this. This is why we do this in open session.”
Poloni emphasized KPMG’s proficiency in conducting major reviews such as this.
“We have done this successfully in a number of municipalities across Ontario. You are paying us very good money for our professional advice. This is our professional advice to you. The structure that we have from an interaction, and a relationship between us, staff and council, it works,” he said.
Poloni says he will back at council in June with an update.
(PHOTO: Oscar Poloni, of KPMG, speaks to council last night. Andrew Autio for TimminsToday)
