FOIs put added burden on township staff
The creation of a new staff position at the Township of Clearview will in part help deal with a growing number of Freedom of Information (FOI)requests.
“We’re getting a significant number of FOIs,” said CAO Steve Sage. “Quite frankly, it’s not necessarily the number of FOIs, it’s particular FOIs with multiple requests on each one. The FOIs we’ve been receiving have as many as 25 line items in each request… I would say the clerk’s department over the last two years is spending 15-20 per cent of its time trying to administer these requests.”
The staff position was created almost one year ago. In Jan. 2014, a resolution to hire a records management person for the clerk’s department passed unanimously.
Sage said there was a caveat that person could not be hired until Dec. 1.
The new position was filled internally and the administrative assistant position left vacant was posted. The posting closed Nov. 14.
“Due to the fact that it was an internal position it gave us the opportunity that when we backfilled the position left vacant we actually hired a position approved by council for less money than originally expected in January of 2014,” said Sage.
Part of the records management job will be to process FOI requests.
Councillor Thom Paterson, who moved the original motion back in January, attempted to defer the hiring to upcoming budget deliberations but couldn’t get a seconder.
He said it would have been a good opportunity to talk about staffing priorities for the new council term.
“Why not give that opportunity to the new council since the old council is in some sense predetermining the budget outcome for the new council? It just seemed like a reasonable suggestion, I don’t know why I had so much difficulty,” said Paterson.
He said some things have changed since the original approval last January, for example, the administrative assistance is proposed to be extended to members of council and more senior staff.
The change was made as a result of a human resources review.
