Chatham-Kent Civic Centre, July 23, 2015. (Photo by Mike Vlasveld)Chatham-Kent Civic Centre, July 23, 2015. (Photo by Mike Vlasveld)
Chatham

Pandemic results in reduction of over 300 municipal employees

Chatham-Kent Council is getting a detailed look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted staffing within the municipality.

A report will come to councillors during Monday night's meeting that breaks down which departments have taken the greatest hit.

Of the municipality's 1,879 employees, including police, 47 were laid off from library services, 165 summer student positions were cut for the season and 121 employees took an unpaid leave of absence. This results in a total reduction of 333 employees, representing nearly 20 per cent of the Municipality of Chatham-Kent's core workforce.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a series of necessary adjustments to service levels and service delivery methods to ensure the safety of our residents, our employees and to facilitate the control of the spread of the virus," states the report.

In addition to layoffs, unpaid leaves and summer student positions cut, an additional 110 employees were redeployed to 140 different positions within the municipality where additional staffing has been required.

Riverview Gardens, the municipality's long-term care facility, required the most significant number of additional resources. A total of 63 of the redeployment positions were in the senior services division.

"To reduce the number of people coming in while at the same time preserving resident assistance, a controlled number of municipal staff from various departments whose services were either closed, cancelled or delayed in deference to the pandemic priority, were trained and redeployed to Riverview Gardens," reads the report. "Redeployment duties were grouped into either immediate needs or preparation for contingency back-up planning in the event that staff started to become ill or required personal emergency leaves."

Meanwhile, there were 39 positions redeployed to the Bradley Centre temporary emergency homeless shelter and 15 to road security positions along Erie Shore Drive with the engineering and transportation department.

"Redeployed staff were taken from areas such as tourism, recreation, museums, theatre, resident attraction and immigration, libraries, children’s services, culture, planning and occupational safety to fill these roles."

Although many municipal departments have seen a dramatic drop in service requirements, others, including public health, social services and legal services, have experienced a surge in service needs during the pandemic.

"In relative terms, the Municipality of Chatham-Kent’s employment response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been similar to the majority of municipalities who have reported out on this topic," states the report...We will continue to monitor service requirements and adjust staffing accordingly as phased re-openings begin."

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