Orazietti's online promise vanishes, then reappears

A vacationing Sault MPP David Orazietti called SooToday.com tonight to defend his government's decision to close a purchasing and payroll office at 390 Bay Street, resulting in a loss of nine local jobs.

"Any time there are job relocations or job losses in your community, it's frustrating," Orazietti told us.

"This consolidation is something that's taking place province-wide," said the MPP, who promised during last year's election campaign that "not one more provincial job will leave Sault Ste. Marie."

Tonight, the MPP suggested to us that he had committed only that Northern Ontario would not suffer a net job loss.

Earlier in the day, SooToday.com had provided a link to Orazietti's original promise on his official campaign website.

Later tonight, we discovered the site had been altered, the promise replaced with a page promoting an upcoming chicken-and-penne luncheon with Jim Watson, Minister of Consumer and Business Services.

Then, just minutes after we reported the switch and changed the headline on this article to 'Orazietti election promise pulled from campaign website,' the page containing the Liberal promise re-appeared.

Earlier coverage

Orazietti defended the closure of the Management Board Secretariat's Shared Service Bureau in Sault Ste. Marie, arguing that the province-wide reorganization will save taxpayers $12 million a year.

Northern Ontario will come out ahead in the restructuring, the MPP told us, with 102 new jobs, 52 coming from Orillia and the Greater Toronto Area.

'We've hired 18 people, we're up nine'

As for his election promise that no provincial job would leave here, Orazietti insisted that the cutbacks announced to staff yesterday are more than offset by new local jobs created by the McGuinty Liberals.

"We've hired 18 people [in Sault Ste. Marie]] since we came to government," he said.

"We're up nine overall."

The MPP wasn't able to supply us with a list of the new jobs created, but he said several are in a new bear-management call centre housed at the Roberta Bondar building.

Internal documents obtained by SooToday.com show that province-wide, a total of 269 employees will be affected by the re-organization.

221 employees offered relocation packages

Of those, 221 have been offered transfers to one of the six communities in which operations will continue after the restructuring.

In Sault Ste. Marie, seven of the nine affected workers have received relocation offers.

"For several years," says Shared Service Bureau Chief Executive Officer Sharon Cohen in a memorandum distributed to all staff yesterday, "we have been talking about the importance of being in fewer locations in fewer communities around the province."

"We are now in a position to make those long-expected changes. So here is what will happen: as expected [Shared Service Bureau] will be gathering staff into concentrated groupw of people performing similar functions in conmsolidated locations around the province.

Offices to close in 10 communities

"Currently, SSB's operations are spread across 16 communities in 36 separate locations. After the consolidation exercise, SSB will have operations in only six communities - the GTA, Orillia, North Bay, Peterborough, Sudbury and Thunder Bay - and in only about a dozen individual office locations."

Workers who've received offers to relocate to other cities have until September 22 to decide whether to accept them.

A confidential memorandum written on August 10 by Michael Villeneuve, the Management Board Secretariat's labour relations manager, indicates that all of the moves are to be completed by the end of the current fiscal year.

The province's fiscal year ends March 31, 2005.

"It is clear from the experience of other that successful shared services operations need to be geographically consolidated in order to drive business process change and realize the efficiencies of the shared services model," Villeneuve wrote.

Why they chose six communities

Another confidential document, a draft question-and-answer sheet prepared August 9 for staff considering relocation offers, outlines exactly where the job cuts were expected to occur.

"We arrived at six communities after going through a process of balancing organbization design principles with practical considerations and the importance of maintaining a regional presence," the sheet states.

"We kept those needs in mind while gathering together positions performing similar work. The result was a plan that placed SSB operations in six communities around the province."

The Thunder Bay office will survive as a 'Centre of Excellence' for pay and benefits, Sudbury for financial transaction processing and procurement, and North Bay for financial transaction processing and pay and benefits.

To read an interesting Grant Thornton analysis of the various ways of structuring a shared services organization, including a discussion of the 'centres of excellence' approach, please click here.

Where the job cuts will occur

The following, taken from the confidential Q&A sheet, is a province-wide breakdown of the changes:

Cochrane - Two employees offered relocation to Thunder Bay or Toronto. Three employees not offered transfers.

Guelph - Four employees offered relocation to Sudbury, two to Thunder Bay or Toronto, and five to Toronto. Nine will be allowed either to transfer to Peterborough or Toronto or to migrate back to previous Ontario public service positions.

Kemptville - Two employees offered relocation to Thunder Bay or Toronto. Four received no offers.

Kenora - Three employees offered relocation to Thunder Bay or Toronto. One worker not offered a transfer.

Kingston - 25 workers get offers to relocate to Sudbury, five to Thunder Bay or Toronto, six to Peterborough or Toronto. Three employees receive no offers.

London - 10 employees offered transfers to Thunder Bay or Toronto, five to Sudbury. Five workers not offered relocation.

North Bay - 10 workers offered relocation to Sudbury, 10 to Toronto, seven to Peterborough or Toronto.

Orillia - Seven staffers get transfer offers to Peterborough or Toronto.

Oshawa - Eight employees offered relocation to Sudbury, eight to Thunder Bay or Toronto, six to Toronto. Two receive no offers.

Peterborough - 11 workers offered transfers to Sudbury, one to Kingston, six to Thunder Bay or Toronto, two to Toronto. Seven not offered relocation.

Sault Ste. Marie - Six staffers get relocation offers to Peterborough or Toronto, one to Thunder Bay or Toronto. Two receive no offers.

St. Catharines - Sevewn employees offered transfers to Toronto, seven to Thunder Bay or Toronto, six to Sudbury, three to Peterborough or Toronto, and seven can migrate back to previous Ontario public service positions.

Sudbury - Four workers given offes of relocation to Thunder Bay or Toronto, one to Toronto.

Thunder Bay - Six staffers can transfer to Sudbury, three to Peterborough or Toronto.

Toronto - 33 employees offered relocation to Sudbury. One worker declared surplus. Four others get no offers.