In the last term of council, our then deputy mayor was very critical of the fact that approximately 17 staff members had left the town’s employ, claiming that staff morale was very low.

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In this term of council, we have had 74 employees leave the employ of the town of Wasaga Beach and the mayor claims morale has never been higher. In the planning department alone, we have lost 20 employees this term with some positions turning over multiple times.

 

This has resulted in many critically important initiatives being far behind schedule. It takes considerable time, staff resources and expense to execute this level of recruitment and training.

 

I will lobby for council to investigate the reasons for this extremely high level of staff departures and implement corrective action. I will recommend that our human resource department put process in place to effectively measure staff morale on an ongoing basis and report leaving interview information to council.

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Speaking of being behind schedule, I had introduced a motion to implement a robust whistle blower policy that council approved to be referred back to staff and a report be brought back to council in March 2022 for council’s consideration. 

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After considerable delay, the report was presented to council July 21st. I motioned to refer back to staff for further review as I insisted that staff concerns be raised to an independent third party, that time frames be greatly extended as to when a complaint can be filed, and that it includes employees of companies owned by the municipality and that non-disclosure agreements would be deemed null and void if the employee’s complaint sighted illegal, unethical or inappropriate behaviour. Anything less is not a robust whistle-blower policy.