The City of Brampton’s new top staffer has fired 25 managers at city hall in a bid to create efficiency and cut down on decision making time.
CAO Harry Schlange said Wednesday the organizational structure of city hall was previously very “autocratic” and “vertical.”
Of the 25 officials let go Tuesday morning, only five will be replaced. Twenty positions have been eliminated.
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Schlange said the terminations will result in $2 million saved annually beginning in 2017. But the city will need to pay out around $4 million in one-time severance this year.
He wouldn’t say which departments the managers worked in, but Schlange said the changes are meant to allow for more direct reporting to his office by reducing the amount of management layers.
“There were many levels in the organization which didn’t allow our employees – some of the best employees that I’ve worked with – at the City of Brampton to innovate,” he added
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Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey said city council was supportive of the changes proposed by Schlange – who she said was hired as an “agent of change” – and many of the recommendations were fuelled by conversations with stakeholders.
“Businesses told us that we were not streamlined in the sense that it took time to get decisions made, whether it was permitting or planning applications,” she said.
Jeffrey said she was elected in 2014 to bring change to city hall.
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“Certainly when I got here we made lots of changes,” Jeffrey said, adding the city adopted several recommendations proposed by an external auditor partially in response to several expense claims.
“I think we’re a work in progress,” she said.
With files from Mark Carcasole