Search for Brampton’s new CAO extended several months, internal documents reveal

Bramptonguardian.com
March 1, 2016
By Peter Criscione

A year after Brampton’s chief bureaucrat left the job following a run-in with Mayor Linda Jeffrey, the search for a replacement goes on and on.

And while city leaders insist that they are taking their time to secure the best candidate possible, emails reveal Brampton isn’t any closer to naming a successor to John Corbett.

Those emails, obtained by The Guardian through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, show the City aimed to have a new chief administrative officer in place by the end of 2015, and then scrambled to offer up reasons for the delay in filling the role once that deadline passed.

“It is common for timelines to be extended during a recruitment of this nature,” reads a note circulated internally among city employees on Dec. 8. “Although exact timelines are unknown at this point, the committee expects the recruit process to extend by several months.”

Corbett, the biggest casualty of former mayor Susan Fennell’s troubled administration, left last March after the budget report he delivered argued against a specific council request to freeze wages of the City’s non union staff, including his own.

Brampton has been searching for a captain to steer its bureaucracy ever since (Marilyn Ball has been doubling up as planning chief and acting CAO), which is raising eyebrows among council critics and municipal experts.

And The Guardian’s efforts to find out what is being done to hire a new chief have been met with responses to Freedom of Information that raise even more questions about how the city is managing the search.

“The CAO recruitment committee is lengthening its timelines to allow the executive search consultants to bring forward additional candidates,” states the Dec. 8 communication. “The committee is dedicated to finding the right leader who can work with staff and council in order to move Brampton forward.”

This, despite assertions in November by the hiring committee chair, Grant Gibson, that the City was close to filling the role and that the calibre of candidates was “impressive.” At last count, there was a shortlist of 3 to 5 candidates.

The job paid $268,535.35 in 2013.

In the email exchanges between October and January, media requests go up and down the City’s hierarchy (from chief operating officer to the city clerk, hiring committee members, and up to the mayor’s office) for review and input.

By the time they get to media, responses were whittled down to just the barebones, offering up very little by way of substance. The Dec. 8 communication notifying staff of the hiring delay was never shared with local media, despite repeated requests for updates.

Emails also reveal concerns around the hiring process, particularly the length of time it is taking to find a new administrative chief.

“Hopefully they are on target with their timelines,” wrote Olga Lukich, Brampton’s senior manager, Office of Community Engagement.

The last exchange between The Guardian and the City occurred on Jan. 5. A senior communications staffer promises to provide answers to a request for a status report on the CAO search.

The Guardian is still waiting for a response.

For observers, the process to find Corbett’s replacement is taking longer than it probably should.

Brian Kelcey, an urban policy consultant with State of the City Research, and former senior advisor to the mayor of Winnipeg, explained that while it’s not unusual for a hiring process to last 12 months (Edmonton and Winnipeg are recent examples of an extended CAO search), leaving such a high-ranking position vacant for this long “isn't ideal either.”

Kelcey, who has closely followed Brampton politics for the past few years, said, given the turmoil around the council table, it is critical for Mayor Jeffrey “to not only reform, but be seen to be reforming the Brampton public service in a way that restores public confidence after the controversies of the last several years.”

“The easiest and the fastest way to do that is to delegate that job to an experienced chief administrative officer who can handle it,” Kelcey said.

Following Corbett’s unceremonious departure March 25, the City announced that his role would be shared among the various department chiefs. Each chief would act as CAO on a “rotational” basis until a successor is appointed. That arrangement didn't last long, however, with Ball assuming the role of acting chief just a few weeks later.

Over the last year, Ball has been caught in the crossfire on a number of key battles at council, including the controversial Southwest Quadrant investigation and Hurontario-Main Light Rail Transit debate. She also issued a sweeping gag order to staff and members of council seeking information related to an ongoing $28.5 million lawsuit against the municipality.

Considered in the running for the managerial hot seat at the outset, observers downgraded her chances of a promotion after she aligned herself closely with a mayor who now finds herself in a minority position on council.

The more a division on council is left to fester, the harder it becomes for a new person to repair the damage, said Kelcey, adding political and bureaucratic instability weighs heavily on the City’s public service employees.

“If it goes on much longer it’s going to start to become a distraction,” said Kelcey, noting the other downside to delaying naming a CAO post is that there wouldn’t be much time for the new boss to move on council’s priorities before the 2018 municipal campaign sets in.