The extra payroll costs have been largely covered by the salary vacuum of open positions, said city financial manager Barry Lacey.
Article content
The City of Regina has been paying city employees up to $5.5 million more per year in overtime than it budgeted since 2018, according to a report coming to city council Wednesday afternoon.
Crafted by administration on the direction of city council during budget talks, the report reviewed past expenditures to inform an idea of cutting overtime by 25 per cent by 2025.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
The intention was to free up $2 million to be redirected to city projects or the dwindling general reserve fund.
However, a review of the city’s books revealed achieving the reduction would not offer any extra funds due to the chronic overages.
“Actual overtime would continue to be greater than the overtime budget,” the report notes.
Payroll records show the city was $26.9 million over budget on overtime expenses between 2018 and 2023.
In 2022 and 2023, $9 million and $9.2 million respectively in overtime was paid, more than double the budgeted $3.7 million in each of those years.
Overtime decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic to $7.1 million in 2021 and $5.7 million in 2020, down from $8.8 million in 2019 and $8.7 million in 2018, which both came in over budgets set at $3.3 million.
Averaging those figures, overtime has been over-budget by between $2 million and $5.5 million every year for the last six years.
Barry Lacey, director of financial strategy, said these extra costs have largely been covered off by salary vacancies, which is when salaries included in the budget go unspent because a job fell vacant.
Headline News
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
He characterized that sum as “in the millions,” but didn’t have an exact figure to offer council Wednesday.
Overtime equates to about three to five per cent of gross payroll expenditures on the city’s bottom line, up six per cent from before 2018 but what Lacey called “consistent with comparable municipalities.”
“That does not mean there isn’t opportunity for us to reduce overtime,” he added.
Recommended from Editorial
The water, waste and environment, transit and fleet services and roadways departments accounted for most overtime — equating to a combined 72 per cent.
Overages are attributed to various causes, prime among them city staff being called in for emergencies like when pipes burst or heavy snowfall requires immediate plowing.
Staff shortages due to illness, leaves or vacancies are also a typical cause, as are crunches to meet project deadlines for construction work tied to capital funds.
Ian Cantello, president of the Regina Civic Middle Management Association, said the report is “concerning” to the union as it presents a look into how city staff are working in “razor thin” staffing margins.
Advertisement 4
Article content
“Looking at this report, I see $5 million spent on overtime that could have been $2.5 million spent on another 30 to 40 FTEs (full-time equivalent staff) that would help share the burden of chronically understaffed workers at the city,” he wrote, in a delegation letter to city council read into the record.
He advised city council to consider the data through the lens of whether the city is appropriately staffed to deliver on the assignments being asked of workers.
From a self-conducted jurisdictional scan of six other Canadian cities, Cantello found Regina falls on the low end of city workers per 100,000 residents, at 1,238.
Saskatoon, per his analysis, comparatively has a ratio of 1,616 workers per 100,000 residents.
“Starting from the assumption that we are appropriately staffed or overstaffed will result in increased staff turnover and lower levels of service,” Cantello wrote.
Lacey said the report has prompted a deeper look at the “root cause” of why employees are filing so much overtime and the practices and procedures in place to oversee it.
A project manager was assigned in April to review overtime volumes and consider “operational refinements” that may improve efficiencies for payroll.
Advertisement 5
Article content
This could include changes like introducing tighter approval processes, monitoring timesheet accuracy and weighing the financial tradeoff of hiring more FTEs to reduce overtime calls.
Work is expected to take place internally through this fall, the report stated.
Lacey said procurement efforts, scheduling efficiency and budget considerations will be part of that conversation on how to improve.
Stakeholders including unions that represent city employees will also be consulted as part of the process, confirmed administration.
Regina’s Audit and Finance Committee considered this item last week. Wednesday’s final vote did not issue any reduction mandates, just agreed to receive and file the report.
The Regina Leader-Post has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.
Article content
