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Orangevill council opts against third-party consultants

February 8, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

Orangeville will redistribute money that had been set aside for three projects to cover the hiring of three people for 18 months.

The town hired Blackline Consultants in 2023 to conduct a service and organizational review of municipal operations. Blackline was tasked to make recommendations on how service levels could be improved.

Council got the review’s final report on Nov. 27 and asked staff to select recommendations for future implementation and to develop an implementation plan.

During the review, staff at all levels worked collaboratively with Blackline, supported the final recommendations presented, and are now eager to implement the proposed recommendations, according to a report to council.

Many of the recommendations reflected upcoming municipal priorities and aligned with identified needs.

The town’s 2024 municipal operating and capital budget includes capital projects led by external consultants. An example of one such project to be led by an external consultant was the Information Technology Master Plan.

But in order to fund the Blackline recommendations within the existing budget, staff are recommending a shift in the approach to using the approved funding.

“Upon review of the 2024 budget, staff have identified funding within the budget that, if consolidated, would provide the ability to deliver on the projects approved and those as recommended by Blackline, by temporarily funding three internal positions,” reads the council report.

“These positions would consist of a senior leader, a business analyst, and an administrative support person.”

This suggested approach is more efficient as the town can capture and build institutional knowledge, direct the timing of projects to complement the current workload and enhance the inner connectivity of related projects.

Many of the projects and recommendations are technology-related. This approach would also significantly improve cost avoidance in that staff will not be requesting additional funding to advance the Blackline recommendations.

The estimated cost to provide the internal staffing resources and related project costs is about $500,000.

In order to fund the strategy, staff have identified three existing council-approved capital initiatives that were previously planned to be undertaken by third-party external consultants.

Those projects are the IT Master Plan, the Records and Information Management Strategy that are $125,000 each, and the Land Mobile Radio Project Management for $500,000.

These projects will now be managed by the new internal staffing resources. The money is entirely taken from the tax levy.

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