SUDBURY - In the wake of Tuesday's news that city CAO Ed Archer’s eight-year career with the city was over, neither Mayor Paul Lefebvre nor Archer himself would say why the decision was made.
The news was delivered via a media release issued during last night’s city council meeting.
After the meeting, Lefebvre clarified to local reporters that it followed a closed-session vote of city council members prior to that night’s public meeting.
The reason for this decision?
“We can’t talk about that under the Employment Act of Ontario,” Lefebvre said.
“We don’t make these decisions lightly, and I’d like to thank Mr. Archer for his eight years of service,” he added. “Our city has improved under his leadership, and now, council wants to look across the country for a new CAO that will bring us to our next level and next steps as a city.”
Sudbury.com connected with Archer by phone this morning, who said that while he was surprised by council’s decision to end his employment, it’s a reality for city managers.
“If you monitor the municipal sector, you know CAOs serve at the pleasure of council, and in this case serve at the pleasure of a Strong Mayor, so that’s the circumstance,” he said.
Through the Strong Mayor powers bestowed upon him by the province, Lefebvre maintains the power to hire and fire the city CAO.
“We’ll close out the relationship and move on wishing each other well, I suspect,” Archer said.
“We had good results, the organization is in a better place than it was when I got here, and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.”
Any discussion regarding severance pay has yet to take place, Archer said, noting that it would be within the parameters of his publicly available employment agreement.
Its termination provision stipulates that although the city can terminate employment at any time with cause, any other termination of employment would include severance pay of 24 months after six years of service.
Archer has been CAO since March 2016, and his 2023 salary was $297,160, meaning his severance pay in this scenario would be almost $600,000.
The city declined comment regarding the matter of severance pay, citing it as confidential. The mayor’s office declined to provide any additional comment regarding how the decision to terminate Archer’s employment was made, since it took place during a confidential closed-session meeting.
Archer’s employment with the city ended effective immediately last night, and city Corporate Services general manager Kevin Fowke was named interim CAO.
Although a media release noted that further announcements regarding the recruitment process and transition plan would be made in the coming weeks, Lefebvre clarified to media that it would be an open-ended national search.
“The idea is certainly to look for someone who’s going to continue down the path of our long-term strategy we’re doing,” he said, pointing to social issues around addictions and homelessness and economic growth as key priorities for whomever they end up hiring.
“We have a great team at the city, there’s lots going on, so we’re looking for somebody to come in and continue on the positive steps we’re taking as a city”
In conversation with Sudbury.com, Archer pointed to a few highlights during his time as CAO which stick out, clarifying that any accomplishments he listed were a shared effort by staff.
During his time, the field of knowledge and responsibilities held by 311 staff expanded, increasing the number of first-call resolutions from around 45 per cent to 75 per cent.
“They have a much broader scope to their work, they’re more cross-trained and able to do almost any transaction in the corporation,” Archer said, noting that the One-Stop Shop was also created at Tom Davies Square, which consolidated more than a dozen service counters to one location, reducing the headcount and “enriching the jobs of the people who are there.”
The city’s budget process changed since Archer took over in 2016 to fuel city council members with more information prior to making decisions.
“When I got here, all councillors talked about was how much things cost and how to get to a bottom-line tax level that was acceptable, and there was no discussion about service,” he said. “I think the conversation has flipped. Certainly taxes are still important, they always will be, but I think people understand that services drive costs.”
Various management tools have been put in place to do things like track how much time staff members spend on each task, which helps determine actual costs and what fair user fees should look like, a reconfigured public transportation system was created called GOVA Transit, and the Greater Sudbury Housing Corporation is undergoing governance changes.
A lot of work has been done behind the scenes, but one thing Archer is particularly proud of has been the amount of context staff have been providing city council to help in their decision-making processes, to “minimize the risks and see what the implications of their choices were before they made them and avoid back-tracking or second-guessing.”
With the news of his terminated employment fresh, Archer said he’s not sure what his next step will be, but that he still has a lot to contribute so has no plans to retire.
“I’m proud of my time here. I think we did good work, and I believe at least the majority of councillors feel the same way,” he said. “I look forward to what’s next.”
Archer has been criticized by some city council members in recent months for approving last year’s wage hikes to managers in pay groups 15 to 18, which were as much as eight per cent in addition to their regular three-per-cent increases.
City council members’ criticism came despite Archer increasing wages using the delegated authority afforded to him by a unanimous vote of city council members and the fact the increases were in line with existing council-approved parameters to bring them up to designated levels after having dropped below an approved list of comparable municipalities in recent years.
City council later voted to withdraw this delegated authority.
Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée was Archer’s most outspoken critic, penning an open letter asserting that if she were CAO, she would resign over the wage-hike issue.
City integrity commissioner David Boghosian later admonished Labbée for publicly maligning Archer, and wrote in a report on her conduct that Labbée’s comments “were motivated by a desire to distance herself from the decision in order to salvage her own political fortunes.”
Prior to Sudbury, Archer served as chief financial officer and interim city manager at the City of Regina from 2014-16. Before that, he was general manager of Community and Corporate Services at the City of Barrie from 2007 to 2014.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
