One of my highlighted issues in this election is nurturing a spirit of entrepreneurship at city hall. We have all heard the stories (true or not) of city workers standing around doing very little, etc.
From my experience, our city workers actually work very hard and take great pride in what they do. But, in the public sector, there is a great responsibility to keep getting better.
In the past 3 years, I have had numerous discussions with my colleagues about efficiency and accountability of the spending we direct on behalf of the community. The new Tournament Capital Centre is a great example of what city staff have accomplished - this new building has created a surplus of about $175 000 in less than a year. The Development Services department publishes annual efficiency reports, assessing how they are doing in meeting their benchmarks. All very good stuff.
We need to build on this. I am appearing on the Jim Harrison show tomorrow, at 9:10 am, and I will be talking about possible ideas as to how.
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