| Apr 20, 2016


There is a concept called “bureaucratic creep”, which describes the tendency of organizations to develop more and more levels of bureaucracy over time.

The number of people doing the actual work of the organization, be they factory workers, front-line social workers or road crews, stays the same or goes down, but the number of people overseeing that work, managing the employees, dealing with work flows, accountability, regulations, liability, the vision of the organization and so on, creeps up and up.

On April 12, South Frontenac received an organizational review from StrategyCorp, a company that spends much of its time dealing with the federal and provincial levels of politics. StrategyCorp found that South Frontenac is a “lean organization” in comparison to similar-sized municipalities.

This, it said, is a good thing, except that it limits the capacity of the township's senior staff and council to think strategically.

The proposed solution to this problem is to create seven new positions. Of those, only one, a fire prevention officer, would work with the public. The other six positions would take the lean out of the South Frontenac bureaucracy pretty quickly. This is no creep; it's a bureaucratic gallop.

Based on staff and council interviews, StrategyCorp found that not only is Wayne Orr, the township's Chief Administrative Officer, over-worked, but that as a whole township staff and council are caught up in dealing with day-to-day issues that inevitably come up, and have no time to look at the big picture and plan for the future needs of the township.

The picture they paint is of an organizational structure that is set up to deal with the kinds of issues that are faced by small rural municipalities such as the other Frontenac townships; however South Frontenac is not that kind of township any more. With a population of 18,000, and the pressure of suburban sprawl from Kingston into its south end, particularly along Perth Road, council and staff are losing control and soon growth will be managing them instead of being managed by them.

So, StrategyCorp proposes that Council create an entire new tier of staff, three directors who would not concern themselves as much with day-to-day operations of the departments they oversee but would be able to think strategically. Where there is now a Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and a number of managers, there would be a CAO, three directors, a clerk, and a number of managers. Since the current managerial staff in South Frontenac (Public Works, Treasury, Planning) now receive close to or over $100,000 per year in salary, their new bosses would need to make more than that.

So this is not a cheap new tier we are talking about.

My first reaction to all this is to provide a bit of free advice to South Frontenac Council (not that they are asking for it). Hire a new clerk to free up the CAO's time, hire a fire prevention officer, and sit on the rest of the report for a while.

The structure that is proposed is pretty much the same as is in place in Frontenac County, and since South Frontenac ratepayers cover most of the county administrative costs, the relationship between the township and the county needs to be addressed first. The most obvious example of this is in the matter of planning, where there is the very real possibility that two departments dedicated to the same functions would end up being in place.

StrategyCorp presented an organizational, not an operational, review. The review calls for the hiring of an economic development and a communications officer. These are not operations that are currently done in South Frontenac, and Council has not considered whether they want them done.

The organizational review took a generic approach. Most municipalities of South Frontenac's size have the kind of structure it proposes. However, even though suburban Kingston is pushing northward, South Frontenac remains a mostly rural municipality and needs to find its own path.

Council might spend some time thinking about where they want the township to go and what kinds of services they should offer residents. Committing to approximately $750,000 per year in salaries and benefits on a new set of managers and directors before making some basic decisions might not be a wise move.

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