The Town of Black Diamond is drawing up a new policy to deal with questions from residents, due to a recent influx of inquiries that is straining the Town’s ability to respond.
At its Feb. 17 meeting, Town council discussed creating a policy to deal with an abundance of requests for information that has employees sometimes working overtime to compile the answers.
Around 50 employee hours were spent responding to questions over the last four months, a cost of about $1,500. One request involved staff researching the cost and man-hours required to purchase and install garbage cans in town in the late ’90s.
The proposed policy could see residents pay for the time it takes to research their inquiries, said Mayor Sharlene Brown.
“The burden on administration has been quite high,” she said, adding it’s increased significantly the last eight months. “The issue is it’s taking a considerable amount of staff time to address some of the concerns. Questions aren’t only asked at our 15 minute question-and-answer period, there is additional questions coming in that’s entailing in-depth research that is causing an extra financial burden.”
The new policy stemmed from an email received by Glen Fagan, a member of the Concerned Taxpayers Group, two weeks ago asking questions regarding an infrastructure study, staffing and plans to improve delivery and reduce costs for services to avoid tax increases. He wanted the Town to reply by Feb. 26.
Fagan, who didn’t attend last week’s meeting, said he wouldn’t be impressed if the Town began charging residents.
“It’s inappropriate on their part,” he said.
Fagan is one of a group of residents who have attended the council meetings regularly over the last 12 months and often approach council with questions on various operations of the Town during the question and answer period.
“The last time I asked a verbal question it took nine weeks to get a response,” he said. “That’s why I asked for a response in two weeks.”
He added that his questions in his latest email was time sensitive because it has to do with the Town’s 2016 budget and that most would take very little time to find the answers.
Fagan agrees that 50 hours spent responding to questions is significant, but said the taxpayers group has tried to work with council and the Town on developing some operational efficiencies among staff and said neither cooperated.
Brown said it’s likely Fagan won’t get a response to his latest request in the time requested because most of the staff are tied up with year-end and budget work.
“These requests are important to respond to, but it’s at a time where we have other responsibilities to deal with,” she said.
Brown told council she spoke with Alberta Municipal Affairs about the situation and was told one option the Town could consider is having all questions go through the Freedom of Information and Protection (FOIP) of Privacy Act, which means citizens would pay administration to get the information they request. Brown said this method wouldn’t be appropriate for all questions that come in.
“If they need information around what they need to do with four dogs I don’t feel like we need a FOIP request,” she said. “But, if they’re asking for 1998 information then that needs to have a different process. I don’t want to pain all citizens with coming in doing FOIP requests. I think that’s an administrative nightmare.”
Coun. Mike Ross said someone needs to be held responsible for the amount of time staff spend answering citizens’ questions.
“I agree that they have the right to know, but it falls exactly in line with the problems that Turner Valley went through on water treatment in that two people cost the town of Turner Valley $600,000 and that’s insane,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Ross said some requests go beyond the scope of employees’ regular duties.
“I believe that these request of administration time and effort are unreasonable in that if the people that are looking for these answers are concerned about efficiencies and cost savings and they are willing to waste significant time of administrative staff to do the research and all that other stuff that’s involved in actually putting together a report to address their questions then there should be a system in place that makes them cover the costs because we are looking at significant time,” he said. “I think everybody has the right to complain and do what they need to do to find answers, but when they come in and get a verbal answer they are not satisfied. They want it in print and they want it studied and they want this and they want that. That takes time and who’s paying for it?”
Coun. Jackie Stickel suggested administration look at how other municipalities deal with the situation.
“I think that people have a right to know, but whatever we do it has to be efficient as opposed to creating more work through a process,” she said.
