As GTA businesses lay off staff by the thousands, the City of Toronto is proposing a hiring spurt of 1,300 new staffers including a dedicated BlackBerry specialist, an animal nutrition research assistant and new tax collectors.
Many of the new hires are to fill front line jobs, including:
• Some 222 new positions at the Toronto Transit Commission to expand service
• 156 welfare caseworkers to handle an expected 90,000 cases on average each month, up from 77,000 in 2008
• Another 271 workers to design and oversee new capital works projects such as the Spadina subway extension, the Transit City streetcar network plus rehabilitation of major roads and bridges.
“Those positions I understand and they don’t cause me a great deal of concern,” Coun. Peter Milczyn said.
But Milczyn, a former budget committee member who doesn’t support Mayor David Miller’s $8.7 billion spending plan for 2009, said there are several hundred new hires — particularly in internal administrative functions — that he finds questionable.
The city’s budget chair, Coun. Shelley Carroll, defended the plan and said the impact on taxpayers isn’t as great as it would appear.
Where the jobs are
• Toronto wants to add 1,300 people to the payroll this year. Here’s what some of them would do:
• 5 permanent inspectors for grow-op crackdown.
• A tech job to set up an electronic tracking system for crackdown on illegal signs.
• One lawyer for human rights tribunal hearings.
• 10 new prosecutors and four legal assistants to staff the six new courtrooms.
• Eight permanent positions in to gear up for 2010 municipal election.
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