BayToday has learned that the city of North Bay is presently paying two men to be the Fire Chief and it's costing taxpayers plenty.
Veteran Chief Grant Love announced this summer he would be on an extended vacation starting July 29, but he won't officially retire from North Bay Fire & Emergency Services until January 27, 2017.
See: Fire Chief sets retirement date
To fill the vacuum, the city appointed Deputy Chief Greg Saunders to fill the role. Saunders has been with the department since 1997.
See: Interim fire chief appointed
But instead of keeping that arrangement, the city staff decided to hire a new Chief effective September 12, meaning the new Chief Jason Whiteley and the former Chief Grant Love are both on the city payroll at the same time until the end of January.
See: North Bay's new fire chief is from Woodstock
According to the 2015 Sunshine List, or Public sector salary disclosure 2015, Chief Grant Love's salary last year was $159,527.02 or $3,067.83 per week.
So for the 20-week overlap taxpayers are on the hook for $61,356.55, and that doesn't include benefits.
Lea Janisse is the Interim Chief Administrative Officer with the City of North Bay
"In all cases we get approval to proceed with the recruitment. In some circumstances there is the need for an approval of council of the appointment and in other cases there isn't, depending on what position we're talking about."
However, in this case, Janisse confirmed that council approved the hiring, before the new chief was brought on board."
Mayor Al McDonald says the hiring is the responsibility of Councillor Mark King. "It's his business unit and his budget. He's the chair of Community Services and the fire department falls under him."
But King said he is unable to comment, as the hiring was approved during an "in camera" session of council of the whole, meaning all of council voted to approve the hiring.
"It's something council approved," said Deputy Mayor and budget chief Sheldon Forgette. "Through the hiring process we found the right person for the job so they took the opportunity to hire that person. As you can see with our CEO search, it takes a lot of time to find the right person."
This comes at a time when council is pressing the fire department to rein in its own costs, and that's not sitting well with some firefighters. President of the North Bay Professional Firefighters Association Robb Roy says he not sure why council did things the way they did but, "We're very happy to have Chief Whiteley with us here. He comes highly recommended and I've spoken to him a number of times and I'm very encouraged by his progressive, literate stand towards how we look at the future of the North Bay Fire Department.
The North Bay Taxpayers Association isn't impressed.
"We're extremely upset about it," says President Miles Peters. "It's a complete disregard for the public purse and taxpayer's money and it bothers us. It coincides with the hiring of another deputy fire chief which was originally hired to control the overtime and that's an area where they could have saved a considerable amount of money...160 thousand plus and again chose to proceed without any consultation or consideration of their own department and that bothers us greatly."
