One critical factor that appears to facilitate staff influence is the structure of Council itself: it is a part-time body, with most councillors juggling full-time jobs, family responsibilities, and other obligations that significantly limit the time they can dedicate to municipal affairs. Recognizing these constraints, a particularly effective method is employed by some City Managers involves the strategic presentation of information. For example, councillors are often provided with meeting agendas that contain thousands of pages of technical documents, reports, and appendices. Strategically placing on the top this mountain of paperwork a concise one or two-page summary of staff recommendations could save councillors thoroughly examining the reading material. We don't if this is the case in Owen Sound but, if it is, this practice not only streamlines their workload but also subtly nudges councillors toward adopting staff positions without fully engaging with the underlying details, effectively centralizing decision-making power in the hands of senior administration.

This is just one small example of how staff could inappropriately influence Committees and Council to achieve their desired outcome. Another involves staff inappropriately participating in the debate at council or a committee meeting. One example of this, occurred at the Corporate Services Committee Meeting on November 09, 2023. BDO Canada, the city 's auditor, briefed the Committee on new rules issued by the Public Sector Audit Board (PSAB) regarding Asset Retirement Obligations (ARO 's). this PSAB regulation requires municipalities to determine if there will be a cost to remediate contamination etc when the asset is no longer needed. For example, there will be a cost to retiring, a property with contaminated soil or a building with asbestos since these hazards will have to be remediated before the asset can be retired. This future cost is a liability that must be now recorded in the annual audited financial statements.

The staff proposal involved hiring a consultant to assist staff in identifying any potential obligations for every asset and hiring a part time finance person to assist with the workload. Staff claimed that they “didn't have the expertise or the time” to perform, what appears to be well within the scope for any professional professional engineer on staff. Three members of the Committee suggested that the city should put this off until next year to give time to better assess what others were doing since there really wasn't any downside to delaying it. One member of the Committee made a motion to that effect. This sparked an immediate reaction from staff. I invite you to watch the video of this meeting to see what I mean. Watch the expression of surprise on the Clerk's face when the motion is tabled. This is an edited version of the meeting.

Corporate Services Committee November 09, 2023

The full unedited version of the meeting is available at this link. (Full Video of Corporate Services - November 09, 2023).

In spite of their being a motion on the floor both the Director and the City Manager offered their unsolicited opinions and spoke strongly against postponing the action. Staff are not members of the Committee. According to the Procedural Bylaw staff are there to respond to questions from Committee members. Section 115 states:

When a motion is under consideration, a Member may ask a concisely worded question of another Member or appropriate staff person, through the chair, prior to the motion being put to a vote.

It's important to note that neither the Director or the City Manager were asked to respond to a question prior to them presenting argument against the motion. The only reason they gave in their argument for not postponing this work was solely that the situation wouldn't change next year so we should just do it this year.

It was obvious that staff were counting on their proposal being approved and were taken back by this motion to postpone. They had even done research on how BDO could provide the consultant services by saying that the BDO consultant doing the ARO work would come from a different BDO office. In fact the Director even stated that there might be advantage to engaging BDO services since their auditors would be familiar with the other office 's work style. This seems to me to be an obvious conflict of interest since BDO auditors would be auditing work done by BDO consultants and for this reason BDO should be ineligible to bid on the RFP for this work. In the end the arguments made by the City Manager and the Director of Corporate Services persuaded enough members against postponing the work and the motion was defeated. As a result the city will hire a Part Time person in Finance and the city will spend money on a consultant to perform work that I believe is within the scope of city staff.

So what prompted these senior managers to improperly argue against a motion? Could it be that without this new work they wouldn't have an argument for a new Part Time employee? Who Knows? What we do know is that the Corporate Services Department is overstaffed and has at least two managers more than other similar municipalities based on this Research Study. Given this, it seems incredulous that Corporate Services lacks the capacity to absorb this additional workload.

I believe that these are two small examples of just how a city staff could inappropriately influence a Committee and/or Council. The eliminate the possibility of inappropriate staff influence, Council should implement the following changes:

The practice of staff providing their “Staff Recommendations” should cease. Instead, staff should present an analysis of the available options with the pros and cons of each. This way each member of council is free to decide for themselves which option they believe is the most appropriate.
To avoid staff inappropriately influencing the members of a committee or council meeting, the Chair of the meeting should enforce the Procedural Bylaw and not allow staff to present argument once a motion has been tabled. Prior to this staff should only speak in response to a question directed specifically to them. They should not present their personal opinions or speak to the issue unless specifically asked to do so by a member of the committee or council.