The Auditor General found about half the staff of the City’s Park and Forestry Department rip off taxpayers.
A plan to install Global Positioning Systems (GPS) on 600 vehicles to keep track of rogue City’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation staff has been canned by Council.
Installation of the devices were to begin in November to track staff after an Auditor General report found almost half the park staff went shopping, drinking, dining or performing other tasks while the job and wrote false statements on their Daily Logs, which each crew must fill out at the end of their shift.
The report found on average crews report spending only four hours, or 51 per cent, of their eight-hour shift on location performing actual park work.
A plan to install GPS devices on the trucks of park workers to find rogue workers has been killed by Council.
Also proposed was a measure to have the Daily Logs matched regularly against GPS readings and stiffer checks of lunch check-in-and-out time and ensure crews are on the job and not at the mall.
The Auditor General wrote that a sample of 85 Daily Logs indicate nearly half of the logs did not match the GPS record.
The GPS showed 46 per cent of the time park staff did not attend locations as stated; 75 per cent of the time GPS indicated in-and-out times clocked at locations were not accurate and in 86 per cent of the locations stated turned out on the GPS to be shopping malls, eateries and non-parkland locations.
The park workers look after 1,500 City parks moreso now as the seasons turn.
“We found that daily logs were not always properly completed,” according to the report. “Park locations and working times were not always accurately reported on daily logs and did not always match GPS records.”
It found that nearly half of park staff took more than the permitted 60 minutes per day permitted for lunches and breaks which I mindboggling.
Installation of GPS on Parks Branch vehicles started in 2022. There are about 604 vehicles used by Parks Branch to maintain the City’s 1,500 parks. More than 30 per cent of the vehicle do not have the GPS installed.
The Parks Branch 2024 operating budget is over $190 million, with $57.5 million dedicated to general summer parkland maintenance. The Parks Branch workforce includes 700 staff in the winter season to over 1,300 staff in the spring/summer season.
Th average City of Toronto hourly pay ranges from approximately $18.78 per hour for Camp Counselor to $55.25 per hour for Senior Planner. A park worker can earn up to $41 hourly on the top end for some jobs.