Snow-clearing reports earn condemnation from U of W prof

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This article was published 03/11/2015 (3626 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A University of Winnipeg political scientist said the conflicting reports from a union and the administration over how best to deliver snowclearing services both lack detail and left him with too many questions.

Aaron Moore, who specializes in municipal politics, said neither the report from CUPE 500 or the report from the public works department clearly answered the question of how best to deliver snow clearing services.

“Neither of them provide enough information that you think they would,” Moore said.

‘Neither side provides any clear explanation for the methods they use to collect their data– and that’s a pretty big issue because they’re giving you completely different numbers and obviously they are compiling them somehow’
– Aaron Moore

Moore said if members of city council were genuinely interested in delivering improved services at the lowest cost, then they should have brought in an independent third party to judge the findings of both reports.

“Neither side provides any clear explanation for the methods they use to collect their data — and that’s a pretty big issue because they’re giving you completely different numbers and obviously they are compiling them somehow,” Moore said.

“If I was an elected official trying to make a balanced decision, not based on politics, I would not find either of these informative enough to make a final decision on.”

Moore said that while he criticizes the union report for failing to explain how it arrived at many of its financial numbers, he said the administrative report was riddled with unanswered questions.

“The city’s report reads like a reason to give council to justify doing things the way they’ve always done it — it looks less of something that was trying to talk about substantial alternatives and more a piece explaining why they do things the way they do and why they should keep doing things the way they do. It doesn’t deal with cost savings and efficiencies.

“They don’t really talk about better ways of actually providing the (snow clearing) service.”

Moore said page 11 of the administrative report contains a breakdown of costs by heavy equipment per kilometre, which shows the city can operate grader plows on Prioirty 1 streets and truck plows on priority 2 streets for less money than private contractors. Moore said the city doesn’t explain why city crews can operate that equipment more cheaply or why they didn’t propose taking that work away from the private contractors.

“There has to be a reason for that,” Moore said. “If the city can do those things cheaper, why not have the city do that and let the contractors do the other work.”

Moore said the administrative report clearly states that there are more complaints per kilometre against private contractors (371 complaints per kilometre) than against civic crews (338 complaints per kilometre).

“If private contractors are causing more damage than city crews, that should be something that is looked into.

“There is no discussion about this and the report says contractors are responsible for fixing (the damage) themselves but there is no follow-up to see if they do that — they can be responsible but it doesn’t mean they are fixing these issues.”

 

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca