A special meeting of MRC Pontiac council took place on Aug. 27, with the council approving financial statements that weren’t available prior to the regular meeting the previous week.
There were no representatives of the municipalities of Litchfield or Portage-du-Fort present.
The mayors of Bristol and Fort-Coulonge joined via video conference.
Warden Jane Toller explained that the monthly financial statements that the council typically reviews at its public meetings are made available to the council 72 hours prior to the meeting through a specialized program. This month the financial statements weren’t available at the correct time.
“It was the first time that has happened, and so we just wanted to make sure everyone understands the importance of having 72 hours to look at it,” Toller said.
The meeting took about 25 minutes and several mayors asked finance and administration director Andrea Lafleur questions.
Toller added that she would like to have certain tweaks to how the financials were presented, such as including a column reflecting an item’s percentage of the budgeted amount.
Toller said that due to several open positions at the MRC, they had saved some money budgeted for salaries this year. She said that they had hired a new HR advisor, as well as hiring a firm to handle communications, as their posting for a communications position had been unsuccessful.
“One thing that came out of the discussion is that we had a few positions that were unfilled for quite a while, so there was actually a savings in the operating budget with less salaries being paid,” she said.
Workplace survey
At the public council meeting on Aug. 20, an in-camera discussion was held on the subject of an employee survey.
MRC director general Kim Lesage said that the MRC’s HR committee had asked for the perspectives of MRC employees following the abrupt end of the remote work policy.
“This is something the HR committee asked for after the employees raised all their concerns, both from the union’s perspective and from our perspective as directors with the whole work from home thing,” she said. “I guess people’s morale being a bit lower this spring, so they asked for a survey.”
The council of mayors voted in March to end the policy that allowed some unionized employees to work from home up to two days per week. The resolution passed in the spring stated that the change is intended “to promote team cohesion, a sense of belonging, motivation, and availability.” The previous teleworking policy was put into place in late 2022 and allows for the employer (the council of mayors) to end the policy with five business days’ notice.
Toller said that while she had received 11 letters from unionized employees who were upset about the change, the workplace survey would allow those in directors’ roles to weigh in.
“The council of mayors feel it’s very important to give our employees the opportunity to speak,” she said. “We haven’t seen any results yet and we do want to ensure that every employee has the opportunity to speak.”
Lesage noted that the negotiations with the union for the renewal of the MRC employee’s collective agreement would begin shortly.
