Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Nanaimo’s city manager unveils plan to axe costs

Nanaimo city manager Ted Swabey has presented council with a plan to reduce management positions at city hall by 10 per cent as part of a restructuring effort to improve communication and streamline the decision-making process at city hall.

Nanaimo city manager Ted Swabey has presented council with a plan to reduce management positions at city hall by 10 per cent as part of a restructuring effort to improve communication and streamline the decision-making process at city hall.

Swabey says the move will result in a total of $1 million in operational savings for the city within two years, an amount that equals approximately one per cent of property tax revenues collected by the city. He said the restructuring will result in $1 million in annual savings each year after that.

The restructuring is focused mainly on bringing city hall operations in line with goals in the strategic plan, Swabey said.

He met with reporters at his downtown office Tuesday to discuss the proposal, which he said will come into effect "immediately," and be complete by the new year.

The plan will see seven positions hacked, including general manager for community safety and development (formerly Swabey's post) and director for strategic relations. Other limbs to be pruned from the organizational tree include senior manager for parks and managers for recreation, business applications and support, community planning and engineering. To compensate for the loss of positions, Swabey will re-shuffle and re-organize several departments for a "flatter" organizational structure. Major changes include the creation of a new social and protective services department that will oversee police, fire, emergency planning and social planning sections.

The changes will also mean a new, two-year term culture and heritage department. Meanwhile, environmental services will be expanded and merged with the city parks department. Swabey said he also plans on adding an enforcement arm to the department in the future.

Two city staff members, Andrew Tucker, director of planning, and Per Kristensen, will see their positions at city hall phased out and will receive compensation packages.

Swabey said the new structure also eliminates the former 'senior leadership team' and opens up direct lines of communication between the city manager's office and department directors.

It also paves the way for a younger, "40-something" managers who are rising through city ranks, said Swabey.

"What this is providing for is a new face to the management team at the city," he said.

As city manager, Swabey did not require approval from council for the changes, but sought its approval anyways.

"I wanted them to endorse the principles," he said.

Swabey presented the plan at the committee of the whole meeting Monday, and received generally supportive feedback from council.