AG report reveals city parks workers spending less time working than they say they are | CBC News

City crews that were supposed to be maintaining Toronto’s parks spent fewer hours working on job sites than they officially reported last year, according to GPS tracking — but they did spend time parked at places like retail stores and restaurants.

That’s according to a new report from Toronto Auditor General Tara Anderson, which also found the city doesn’t have a reliable way to properly track whether or not workers are getting tasks done to the appropriate standard.

“There’s a lot of really fantastic city staff out there. A lot of them work really hard — but these numbers are quite damning,” Coun. Brad Bradford said on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning Tuesday.

“At the end of the day, you’ve gotta show up and do the job that you’re being paid for.”

CUPE Local 416 President Eddie Mariconda said in a statement to CBC News that the union representing the city’s park maintenance workers has reviewed the report, and while it highlights “important issues,” it also “reflects just one aspect of a much larger picture.

“Our members often face significant challenges at work, including operational gridlock and broken-down equipment,” Mariconda said. “Despite these obstacles, we are extremely proud in what our members do to keep Toronto parks clean and beautiful.

“We are committed to addressing the concerns raised in the audit during our upcoming bargaining sessions with the City of Toronto, focusing on practical solutions that support our members.”

The report, which was released at the end of September, outlines how the city’s parks department uses daily logs to track the work crews are doing. Those logs are supposed to be accurate, signed by crew leaders and submitted to a foreperson — but the investigation found that logs weren’t always properly completed, park locations and working times weren’t always accurately reported, and didn’t always match vehicle GPS system records.

In 73 of the 85 logs reviewed as part of the report, which were collected from June and August of 2023, GPS data showed that city vehicles stopped at locations that weren’t parkland, garages or waste disposal sites. Instead, they were found to be stopping at retail establishments, eateries, industrial areas, residential addresses and places of worship.

The total amount of time spent at those locations, combined with reported lunches and breaks, exceeded the city’s 60-minute daily allocation for meals and breaks in 41 per cent of those instances.

The report also outlines specific crew reports as examples. In one of those, the auditor general’s office reviewed the locations and times reported on a crew’s log against the GPS report for the vehicle they used on that particular day — and it found they did not line up.

According to the GPS, the crew’s truck didn’t stop at five of the eight park locations listed on their daily log. Instead, it was parked at a plaza for over two and a half hours, less time was spent at each park location than was indicated on the log, and the crew’s time in and time out wasn’t accurately recorded. That vehicle then returned to the city yard about three hours before the end of the workers’ shift.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mayor Olivia Chow called the report’s findings “deeply concerning,” and said people “deserve park amenities that are well-maintained so they can be used and enjoyed.

“Mayor Chow thanks the Auditor General for her report and recommendations, and looks forward to working with councillors and city staff to implement them.”

The city’s auditor made multiple recommendations for improvement, including ensuring accurate daily logs, modernizing record keeping and expanding the use of GPS technology to track productivity. A city spokesperson said in a statement that staffers are already working to address many of the recommendations.

The gross operating budget for the city’s parks branch is more than $190 million, with $57.5 million dedicated to general summer parkland maintenance. Its workforce includes both permanent and temporary seasonal staff, ranging from about 700 workers in the winter to over 1,300 people in the spring and summer seasons.