Sarnia hires deputy clerk after three-year job vacancy at city hall

During the past three years, Sarnia’s clerk says she has been able to get done what’s needed at city hall.

Article content

“But I think that there’s more that we should and could be doing in the clerk’s office,” said Amy Burkhart.

Article content

To that end, Denny Giles, she said, formerly deputy clerk with Plympton-Wyoming, was hired Oct. 10 as the city’s first deputy clerk since Burkhart, before she took on acting clerk duties in October 2020in the wake of former clerk and city solicitor, Sutheat Tim, resigning.

“Since then, and throughout the duration of the pandemic, we have absorbed (deputy clerk) responsibilities in the existing staff complement,” Burkhart said.

That’s meant challenges, she said, particularly during the 2022 election.

“Having a full-time deputy clerk would have certainly assisted with my workload during that period of time,” she said.

Article content

“I can’t count the number of hours I actually put in to administering the municipal election.”

Projects like a review of the city’s advisory committee framework to ensure compliance with the Municipal Act, and to look at standardizing terms of reference and meeting protocols, as well as evaluating committees’ relevance also have been on hold in the interim, she said.

Delays implementing an electronic records management system is another example, she said.

But with the added help “we are now advancing requests for the 2024 budget, through reserves, to take that back up and refocus our priorities,” she said.

More proactive policy reviews also can be done with the deputy clerk position restored, Burkhart said.

Article content

The position was left vacant in 2020 as a cost-saving measure amid COVID-19 “while we worked to offset and better as certain the financial impacts of the pandemic,” city spokesperson Steve Henschel said in an email.

“At the same time the vacancy period provided us opportunity to review the role’s responsibilities and future improvements to service delivery via the office of the city clerk.”

Delaying plans to hire a deputy clerk until later in 2023 was also a cost-saving measure approved in council budget deliberations in January. Initially the hire would have been earlier in the year.

A job posting for the position lists the salary at $97,000 to $123,000 a year.

A bylaw making the appointment official was to be approved at the Oct. 16 council meeting, but that meeting was cut shorts.

Under the Municipal Act, Burkhart said she can still delegate clerk powers and duties in the interim, in writing, as needed until the bylaw is adopted.

The delay “doesn’t impact (Giles’) ability to do the work he needs to do right now to support the clerk’s office,” she said.

[email protected]

Article content