Saskatoon mayor Charlie Clark says councillors are working well together as they try and reduce a $51 million budget gap projected for next year.
“We’ve made a lot of progress. We have already reduced over $20 million of that funding shortfall. I’m proud that we’ve been able to do it in a thoughtful and civil way,” Clark said during a CTV Morning Live interview.
His comments come after an exchange with Coun. Darren Hill during a recent budget meeting. The two clashed after Hill claimed he was getting text messages during the meeting which claimed Saskatoon Transit is overstaffed with managers.
“I think there has been some attention put on the fact that I called upon Councillor Hill in the meeting because he was referring to a text message ... that the rest of the council had no idea who the message was from or what the information was,” Clark said.
“Those kinds of interventions create a challenge for governance because if somebody has information they are asking questions about, everybody is supposed to be aware of it.”
Clark said he didn’t see it as a sign there is "significant conflict" in the budgeting process.
CITY STAFF REVIEW
The mayor said that part of the budget review process will include a look at the number of staff the city employs.
“It’s something that we are always looking at as we evolve our departments and change things to make sure we don’t have redundancy within the organization.”
He referenced Coun. Cynthia Block's plan to introduce a motion to audit staffing levels.
“I do want residents to be clear on the comparisons that we’ve done on how our city operates compared to other cities,” he said.
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“It’s hard to make an exact comparison but we are among the lower number of the pack in terms of [full time employees] in terms of population. So there are no clear signs that we are overstaffed at all.”
The next special budget meeting for council will be on August 15.
