THUNDER BAY — A month after publicly calling for a hiring freeze across city operations, Mayor Ken Boshcoff says he remains committed to the idea, but there’s still no timeline for when he might bring it forward to city council.
Boshcoff had expressed his intention to call for the hiring freeze one month ago, on Aug. 8, saying he intended to file a motion for debate by council the following week.
He called the move a response to residents’ “furious” reaction to council’s blueprint for next year's budget, which envisions a tax hike of six per cent, and user fee increases above five per cent.
Boshcoff subsequently told Dougall Media in mid-August that he intended to bring a motion forward at council’s Aug. 28 meeting.
Asked Friday about the status of the proposal, Boshcoff said “it's at the clerk's office,” adding he was unsure of a timeline for when it could be brought forward.
Responding to a TBnewswatch inquiry, the office of the city clerk stated it had not received any requests from the mayor relating to a hiring freeze.
In a follow-up conversation, Boshcoff acknowledged he had not in fact communicated with the clerk’s office, saying instead the topic had been discussed in “high-level meetings” with members of city administration.
“I think we’re probably still at the pre-submission stage, so I’m not going to debate that in terms of the status of my resolution proposal,” he said.
“There’s some other stuff that has surfaced that is a bit more important, so let’s just say it’s on the mayor’s list of future resolutions… The next month, the clerk has got piles of stuff coming. I don’t want to derail that, because I’d rather get closer to the budget process to do that.”
Boshcoff added that he apologizes for the delay, but “it has not left my agenda.”
When he broached the topic in August, Boshcoff said he wanted to see the city hold off on filling any vacancies for non-mandated positions for the rest of 2023, and postpone hirings for any new positions proposed in the 2023 budget until next year.
On Friday, however, Boshcoff appeared to be aiming for a less stringent hiring policy.
“This isn’t meant to impose any kind of hard and fast rule — it’s only meant that when there are vacancies, that we really have to be quite studious about seeing if things could be done differently,” he said.
The proposal had drawn opposition from the city’s largest union, CUPE Local 87, saying rank-and-file workers were already struggling to keep up with workloads given existing vacancies.
City manager Norm Gale had also pushed back, saying administration already “carefully scrutinizes each vacant position” before hiring, and adding the city had already planned for $2 million in vacancy-related savings in 2023.
Boshcoff said Friday he has received suggestions from city employees themselves that more could be done to trim staffing, but declined to specify areas where that could be done.
