Municipal staff lack necessary skills, GN report finds

DENISE RIDEOUT

Many of the lands officers, senior administrative officers, work foreman and building maintenance officers who work for Nunavut’s hamlets don’t have the proper skills to do their jobs – and the Nunavut government will have to spend $1.5 million on training to get them up to par, a new GN report says.

In fact, according to the report, many municipal staff lack even the most basic skills that are essential to carrying out their duties.

Finance officers, for instance, have difficulty managing budgets and expenditures, lands officers have little knowledge of environmental laws, work foremen are weak in managing projects and staff who maintain hamlet buildings need significant training in how to do so, the report reveals.

The department of community government and transportation (CGT), which is responsible for Nunavut’s hamlets, released a Municipal Staff Training Needs Assessment report to the territory’s senior administrative officers on Sept. 15. The SAOs were gathered in Iqaluit for the annual general meeting of their organization, the Nunavut Association of Municipal Administrators.

The document shows there are significant gaps between what hamlet staff need to know to do their jobs and what they actually know.

And that should ring alarm bells for the GN, the report warns. The size of the training gaps can be expected to lead to both operational and financial problems. It will be difficult for Nunavut communities to deliver services effectively without filling these holes in the capability to do the job, the report says.

CGT commissioned Ile Royale Enterprises, a Yellowknife-based consulting firm, to look at the current training needs in Nunavut’s hamlets and come up with programs suited to those needs.
Key jobs skills missing

Through a questionnaire and interviews with 19 of the territory’s 25 SAOs, Ile Royale soon got a picture of the severe lack of skills and the desperate need for training in Nunavut.

The gap that is out there now is a significant gap, said David Connelly, one of the consultants. And what came out of these interviews was that no one wants to wait for that training.

SAOs who filled out the questionnaire said that accounting and finance training are the single biggest needs for their hamlet staff. All types of managers and even finance officers would benefit from financial training, they said.

When asked to rank the skills and training needs of building maintenance officers, the SAOs pointed out those staff members require courses to teach them how to properly maintain buildings. The individuals that look after the most expensive assets in the community are seen as having large training gaps, the consultants say in the report.
In all, there are about 70 building maintenance officers across Nunavut who need that training.

In addition, work foremen, who often manage the hamlets’ largest budgets, need training in most areas of financial management before they’ll be competent in their jobs.
They also have significant weaknesses in managing projects and buildings. The implication here is if you have a work foreman that’s managing a project in your community and isn’t too good at it, you might have some project overspending, Connelly said at the meeting.

The hamlets’ finance officers, who are expected to manage budgets and expenditures, have difficulty doing so, the report reveals. And that’s a cause for concern, say the consultants. These training gaps effectively remove management level controls that should be in place to detect and avert financial concerns before they become larger issues.

Staff who work in the lands department were found to have little knowledge of environmental laws and contract management, a potentially costly situation, the consultants point out.

Even the SAOs who filled out the questionnaire admitted they require more training to do their jobs properly.

While financial management is generally considered to be the strongest area for SAOs, there are material gaps in the knowledge of and ability to manage the technical areas beyond finance, the report says.

Focus on training has waned
Now that CGT and the Nunavut Association of Municipal Administrators (NAMA) have concrete proof that training is essential, if not critical, both groups have a big task ahead.
They’ve got to find money, time and courses to deliver required training in each of the hamlets.

The focus on training hamlet staff has waned in recent years as more emphasis was put on getting the new territory up and running. Delays in staffing positions and the volume of other priorities have resulted in less emphasis on training over the last three years, the report says.

Last fall, NAMA proposed taking over municipal training from CGT. But after looking at that idea, the consultants recommend the two groups work together as opposed to taking different approaches.

Either way, Elwood Johnston, president of NAMA, wants them to get going.
“We’re running behind. Every day we’re running behind. And there’s only so many pots of money we can turn to,” said Johnston, who is also the SAO of Cambridge Bay.

He then criticized CGT for talking about training, but never committing money to it. “Tell me a number,” Johnston said, referring to the fact he’s been asking for years about the dollar figure for training.

Then Darren Flynn, director of Community Development for CGT, gave Johnston what he was looking for. He told him the GN will have to spend $1.5 million on training over the next three years. And the hamlets will have to find some money in their budgets to contribute to the overall cost.

“I’m giving you my personal guarantee that we’re going to fast-track this,” Flynn said. “Right now there are dollars in the budget. Let’s get on with it.”

Training courses may begin as early as November. The consultants recommend offering nine courses in each of the three regions over the next two years. After that, they suggest, a long-term training plan should be devised.