Winnipeg city council wades out of contracting out

In 1998 Winnipeg city council introduced a plan that handed maintenance of 96 city wading pools to volunteer community groups. Council had originally proposed that all pools and arenas be turned over to local community groups but 5,000 signatures on CUPE cards opposing these measures forced council to scale back its plans. In the end, only 11 of 74 community groups wanted to take part in the contracting out experiment, assuming responsibility for 16 wading pools.

The pilot plan was a failure. What was supposed to save the city more than $100,000 ended up costing thousands of extra dollars to administer and supervise.

Contracting out the management and operation of the centres to community volunteers raised serious liability issues. With annual turnover on the centre’s boards, there was no guarantee that contracts would be administered in the same way from year to year, leaving the door open to health and safety problems. The service contracts left the city liable for any violations.

Only one of the volunteer groups was willing to take on pool operations again in 1999. All the centres supported municipal employees taking over the tasks. Members of CUPE 500 are once again at work in all of Winnipeg’s pools.

Community groups didn’t want the responsibility for delivering this service and knew city employees had the resources and the time to do it best.