{"id":26689,"date":"2020-06-04T18:37:17","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26689"},"modified":"2020-06-04T18:37:24","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:37:24","slug":"aurora-launches-town-wide-review-of-service-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-launches-town-wide-review-of-service-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora launches Town-wide review of service levels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora is growing and changing, and, as demand for\nservices increases due to growth and evolves as a result of demographic shifts,\nthe Town will soon be looking at how services are delivered to residents into\nthe future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week put the wheels in motion on a Municipal\nService Level and Delivery Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spurred by a motion from Councillor Michael Thompson, the\nreview will task staff with looking at \u201cmore efficient and cost-effective\nservice delivery, enhanced organizational and operation procedures, new revenue\nstreams and potential savings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is always important for us, as an organization, to\ncontinually evaluate and see how we can do things better,\u201d Councillor Thompson\ntold his colleagues last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his motion, the Councillor said it is always the wish\nof local lawmakers to \u201cexamine how to improve services, identify any new or\nrising service demands and evaluate service levels in the face of competing\npriorities and\/or decreasing revenues and increasing costs to operate the\nmunicipality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A review, he noted, helps set priorities, identify new\nways to bring money into municipal coffers, reducing the cost of delivery, all\nthe while \u201cmaintaining and\/or improving services and service levels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA municipal service level and delivery review is a\nrigorous evaluation process that looks at the needs and expectations of the\ncommunity, the performance and costs of the services provided, and may provide\ninsight on best practices and\/or alternative\/better ways to deliver a service,\u201d\nCouncillor Thompson said, noting in his motion that the Town last conducted a\nservice level review in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this is something that is needed and I am happy\nit is coming forward,\u201d said Councillor John Gallo in support of the motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Sandra Humfryes also offered her support,\n\u201cThis is the right time. It has been nine years and I think it is a good time\nto get this on the table. When it comes back to us, I think we will come up\nwith some different things we haven\u2019t seen before due to the circumstances and\nhopefully it will help us do more with less in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words were echoed by Councillor Wendy Gaertner, who\nsaid, \u201cWe are in changing times and we need to look at how we might want to\nadapt to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In supporting the motion, Councillor Rachel Gilliland\nlooked to the 2013 Service Level Review. Since then, we\u2019re now in a \u201cnew normal,\u201d\nshe said, and looking at service levels now was particularly timely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving this assessment right now may actually work\u2026to\nhelp find some efficiencies to our operating just based on connectivity and\nremote work,\u201d she said. \u201cWho knows, maybe we can attract different employment\nthat is not necessarily in Aurora and servicing the needs of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing trends now of corporations who [are] maybe\ncutting some of their operational costs or finding efficiencies through this\nexperience, which has forced us to be online\u2026I really hope this report going\nforward will take a look at these opportunities in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mayor Tom Mrakas: \u201cI think we\u2019re all about\u2026getting\nresults for our community. Since last term with the development of the Finance\nAdvisory Committee, I think we started down that path in how we can find\nefficiencies [and] we have always said our job is to provide the best possible\nservice at the best possible price and that is exactly what this is going to\nbring to us, to be able to provide that for our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Service Level Review is expected clear the last hurdle during budget talks scheduled to take place this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora is growing and changing, and, as demand for services increases due to growth and evolves as a result of demographic shifts, the Town will soon be looking at how services are delivered to residents into the future. Council last week put the wheels in motion on a Municipal Service Level and Delivery Review. Spurred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Wt","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 22:54:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}