City Council has approved a plan to improve oversight of Toronto parks workers after a damning auditor general report found some city crews were parked near restaurants, shops and other non-work locations while on the clock.
In a 14-point plan, City Hall is asking the parks department to add additional training for staff and to step up its use of GPS tracking.
The auditor general cross-referenced a sample of vehicle GPS data and daily activity logs and found parks workers were spending significantly less time at work sites than they said they were.
Crews reported spending upwards of four hours a day at parks locations during an eight-hour work day, but GPS data indicated crews were only spending about 2.5 hours on site. On top of that, 86 per cent of the GPS logs indicated crews stopped near shops, restaurants, residential addresses or places of worship during the work day.
The report served as a “serious wake up call” for the parks department and city officials, Coun. Mike Colle said during Wednesday’s city council meeting, echoing remarks from his colleagues that the report has eroded the public’s trust.
According to Coun. Dianne Saxe, the report signalled to Torontonians that the reason some parks are “in such bad shape” isn’t because of budget constraints, “but that we can’t manage our people.”
“That undercuts public faith in everything that we do in an enormously important way,” she added.
Three of the points in the city’s 14-point plan to tackle this issue involve stepping up training and reinforcing guidelines for park maintenance crews and supervisors alike. The training would ensure standards are being met and are fully understood by staff.
The city council is also directing the general manager of parks, forestry and recreation to implement a regular review of daily activity logs together with GPS data to verify work has been recorded correctly — which is what the auditor general did to discover this issue.
In addition, the general manager has been ordered to ensure GPS devices are installed on all parks vehicles used by the parks department. Currently, only about one third of vehicles have GPS devices.
Until GPS tracking has been deployed across the full fleet of vehicles, city council is asking that vehicle odometer readings be added to daily work logs.
City council has also ordered a full review of service level standards for parks to ensure maintenance standards are “realistic and reasonable, taking into account the budget and resource constraints of the City.”
The general manager of parks, forestry and recreation will report back to the city’s audit committee with an update on how the measures are being implemented.
A theme in Wednesday’s debate emerged about where the buck stops when employee standards aren’t being met. Many councillors appeared to agree the problem didn’t lie with parks crews, but with management.
“If somebody doesn't get the employee to do something, that's a management problem,” Coun. Paula Fletcher said. She encouraged her colleagues to “ride around with the park staff” to understand how city workers can get pulled in many different directions during their work day.
“Let's be sensitive to the nature of this work, and to the fact that the management structure needs to be more careful in indicating what is required from staff,” she said.
The union that represents parks maintenance workers said in the wake of the auditor general’s report there is a “much larger picture” behind the discrepancies in work logs and GPS data.
“Our members often face significant challenges at work, including operational gridlock and broken-down equipment. Despite these obstacles, we are extremely proud (of) what our members do to keep Toronto parks clean and beautiful,” said Toronto Civic Employees’ Union President Eddie Mariconda.
