What’s in a name? New Tec managers wants to be called directors

By Brad Pritchard Barrie Advance Nov 06, 2012 

NEW TECUMSETH – New Tecumseth CAO Terri Caron says a handful of department changes New Tecumseth council is set to approve will help the municipality “get the best bang for its buck.”

With the changes, department heads would be referred to as directors, replacing their old titles as managers.

Caron said changing staff titles will in no way lead to higher salaries and shouldn’t be viewed as promotions.

“In terms of additional costs for the title change, there is no additional costs associated with that because the managers are currently at the same level of responsibility and are at a market compared with the existing comparable municipalities,” she told council.

Renaming the department heads brings New Tecumseth in-line with the naming practices used by other municipalities in Simcoe County, Caron added.

“Almost every other municipality in Simcoe County refers to at least a number of their department heads as directors, so when our director of planning goes up to a county planning directors meeting, he’s one of about two or three that are there as a manager and the other department heads all have managers reporting to them,” she said.

The town could also be shuffling its resources to create a new Economic Development department, which will also look after communications services and be headed up by a new director, replacing the old position of Economic Developer Officer.

Council is also in favour of bringing on a fulltime communications coordinator, which up until now has been part time position.

Caron said these changes amount to a re-juggling of the town’s existing resources and won’t result in additional costs that haven’t already been budgeted for.

Coun. Paul Whiteside said he supported the organizational changes, but preferred to wait until next year’s budget talks before creating the new fulltime communications coordinator position.

The salary for the newly created director of Economic Development and Communications position is $119,836, plus another $26,235 in benefits. The fulltime communications coordinator salary will be bumped to $48,519, with another $13,264 in benefits.