The NVCA Efficiency Audit – Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

The following comments on the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority’s Efficiency Audit have been send to the NVCA’s directors.

AWARE Simcoe’s Concerns with NVCA Efficiency Audit Recommendations released August 22, 2014 

AWARE Simcoe’s foremost concern is the closed session process that was followed and the lack of opportunity for the public to comment before decisions are made. Even the NVCA board was not given advance copies of the materials before they arrived at the closed session meetings. Only the Efficiency Audit Ad Hoc committee was privy to the report before the meetings. The 26 recommendations were only released to the public with the agenda for the August 22, 2014 NVCA board meeting at which they were to be voted on.

AWARE Simcoe does not understand how such behind-closed-doors changes can be consistent with an open and transparent process in which the board would discuss the recommendations and make the changes at its public meeting.

It is misleading to say that Gazda’s audit report has been made public. The public has seen a list of his recommendations received by the board August 22nd and a summary, posted August 28th. The public has not seen a full report of the Efficiency Audit. Furthermore, there are key differences between the August 22nd recommendations and those listed in the August 28th summary. The two confidential recommendations (# 5&26) from the August 22nd report are removed and replaced with two different recommendations to maintain the total of 26. Why is that and how did that process whereby the changes were made fit in with decisions being made by the board in open meeting of which notice has been provided to the public?

Under the Conservation Authorities Act “The objects of an authority are to establish and undertake, in the area of their jurisdiction, a program designed to further the conservation, restoration, development and management of natural resources…..”

The Efficiency Audit Report makes no mention of the intrinsic value of the legislated mandate of the NVCA in protecting the natural environment and the safety of residents and communities within its jurisdiction. Protecting the natural resources of the watershed has huge economic significance throughout its watershed, yet there is no reference to this in the report. For example, closed beaches in Wasaga Beach would devastate the town’s economy. Conversely, if the NVCA is stripped of its mandate to protect the residents from being flooded, the costs to individuals and the municipalities will be enormous.

The audit is based on comparison with 8 other CAs. There is no evidence of how efficient these CAs are at maintaining water quality and functioning natural features of the landscape. Were reports of these issues reviewed? How comparable are these CAs in terms of the natural complexity of the watershed and the value to the entire province of their natural features.

The manner and speed with which these major changes to the NVCA are being pushed through, just before an election, does nothing to alleviate AWARE Simcoe’s concern that the real motive behind these changes is to undermine the role of the NVCA in regulating development in flood plains and wetlands and in protecting the ecological health of the watershed.

The cost of producing this report and implementing these recommendations will be several hundred thousand dollars. Two senior staff members have been let go. The settlement costs for terminating these senior staff with many years seniority will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Member municipalities will have to pay for this on top of their regular levy. Meanwhile, several of the recommendations to review services are nickel-and-diming costs and revenues to save money for developers.

AWARE Simcoe has serious concerns with a number of the recommendations as follows: 

(The recommendation numbers are according to the August 22nd agenda report.)

Recommendation #2: Take necessary steps by the CAO and Department Heads to maximize the use of part-time and seasonal employees including cost effective deployment of student interns, coop students and seconded staff from other CAs, Member Municipalities.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Is the NVCA going to use part-time and seasonal staff to do plan review and engineering review? Those roles need to be full time experienced staff. 

Recommendation #3: In conjunction with the Board direction given re: NVCA’s primary mandate, determine current NVCA service delivery that is to be outsourced in full or in part.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Is the NVCA going to outsource flood control and plan review to consultants who will also be working for developers? These consultants will have a huge conflict of interest. This would be completely unacceptable. 

Recommendation #4: Charge the CAO and Department Heads to investigate ways and means NVCA can implement a solution finding approach in dealing with target customer/client groups, i.e., Member Municipalities, small individual land/property owners (agricultural and non-agricultural), consulting engineering firms, developers, other CAs, and upper tiers of government.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Implementing a “solution finding approach” can be a euphemism for “circumventing the rules” so that development can take place. This recommendation could have the effect of putting pressure on staff to avoid tough decisions that protect public safety. 

Recommendation #7: Revisit planning fee schedule in conjunction with the completion of Recommendation 5; taking into account comparative data from the reference group of CAs, identify opportunities and stage implementation of reduced user fees/charges to better align with other CAs in the comparator group as well as market practices (i.e., “going rate”).

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Planning fees were recently “revisited” and established. Why is this process being duplicated?

Recommendation #8: Mandate the CAO and the Director of Corporate Services to review the NVCA expenditures breakdown vis-à-vis the median of the comparator group; the review to determine actions to be taken to reduce percentage of expenditures allocated to Watershed Management and Administration and increase amount for Land Operations; report to be submitted to Finance & Administration Standing (or Ad Hoc) Committee with recommendations for consideration by the Board.

AWARE Simcoe Concern — There is a danger in copying what other CAs are doing without in-depth examination of the results on the landscape of the other approaches. What evidence is there that the NVCA approach is not the best practice, and the other CAs are not short-changing their watershed? 

Recommendation #9: Same as above (including Board Committee report) for the review of the NVCA revenue breakdown vs. the median of the comparator group; the review to identify actions to increase percentage of revenue coming from grants/subsidies and municipal projects with less reliance on the municipal levy as well as planning user fees/charges.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Reliance on grants can be very tenuous when grant programs are often temporary. The NVCA is responsible for two very important natural features – the Minesing Wetlands (globally valuable) and the Nottawasaga River (disproportionately valuable in Great Lakes terms as spawning ground for a significant proportion of Lake Huron fish – steelhead, sturgeon). The fact that the river and the wetlands have value far beyond the boundaries of the watershed is something that should be reflected in provincial funding support. Municipal reps need to exert political pressure to get the province to increase funding to CAs. 

Recommendation #10: Working with a seconded financial expert (one from the Member Municipalities or other sources), charge the CAO and Senior Management Team to develop a sustainable funding model and mechanism with pilot project implementation.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Finding a new sustainable source of funding is asking the impossible of the staff. That must be done in cooperation with the provincial government. 

Recommendation #15: Expand the use of career paths to eliminate/reduce the number of dead-end jobs at NVCA, contributing to retention of qualified staff members; career paths example: Planning Technician, Planner I, Planner II, Senior Planner, Manager Planning and Regulations.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Please explain how you can eliminate dead end jobs with a small staff complement. 

Recommendation #17: Establish a Finance & Administration Standing (or Ad Hoc) Committee to complete an identification of options and alternatives for the Board to consider re: the definition of NVCA’s primary mandate; schedule a special meeting of the Board to discuss the mandate and decide on the services to be covered by the municipal levy and services funded by other revenue sources or outsourced.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – VERY SERIOUS – How can the primary mandate be changed when it is legislated? This recommendation has the potential to reduce the ability of the NVCA to regulate activities in flood plains and wetlands. Is this the real goal here?

Recommendation #20: Reduce Board size to match median of the comparator group at 16.

Recommendation #21: Implement a new voting protocol for the Board in order to achieve fairer representation of Member Municipalities in terms of levy contributions. The nine largest levy contributors would have two votes and the balance, a single vote with the exception of the three Municipalities making the smallest levy contributions. The latter group would have a single vote or be represented by one of the other Member Municipalities.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Reducing the number of board members requires unanimous consent. Some smaller municipalities have stated they won’t give up their member. 

Recommendation #22: Re-establish Standing (Advisory) Committees of the Board with specific terms of reference and modus operandi to be recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee.

AWARE Simcoe Concern – The board must retain responsibility for operation of the authority. Handing responsibility off to a committee could result in the board being run by a small clique. 

Recommendations # 5, 26 – These two confidential recommendations are replaced in the August 28 summary posted on the website by the two recommendations below.

August 28 Recommendation #3: Conduct a follow-up review by the Planning Standing (or Ad Hoc) Committee of the Board on the implementation status of the recommendations (N=36) contained in the independent 2010 Planning Program Review.

August 28 Recommendation # 15: Implement the Performance Management Program application for the CAO and the Senior Management Team (Phase II Recommendations).

AWARE Simcoe Concern – Why has the summary posted on the website been altered from the original report that was presented to the board as part of the August 22nd agenda? 

AWARE Simcoe estimates the cost to date of producing and implementing the Efficiency Audit to be between $300,000 and $400,000 including employment termination payments. The municipal taxpayers will have to bear this cost without even having their municipal councils aware that they are being incurred. This is an unacceptable breach of trust for utilizing tax dollars. 

In summary, AWARE Simcoe is very concerned that many of the recommendations of the Efficiency Audit report will seriously undermine the NVCA’s ability to fulfill its mandate to protect watershed from flood damage and improve the ecological health of the watershed upon which so many people depend for their quality of life.

We would also like a clear explanation of how the NVCA intends to proceed with implementation of all the recommendations.

Link to Efficiency Report recommendations received by NVCA directors August 22, 2014

Link to Efficiency Report summary posted on NVCA website August 28, 2014