02-26-2015, 12:20 PM
(02-26-2015, 11:42 AM)clasher Wrote: I still get people (mostly adults, actually) knocking on my door offering to shovel the walks and driveway for 40$ or something. I've never taken them up on the offer.So supposedly rational people would rather pay $40 a pop to have someone clear their sidewalks rather than pay $40 per year in taxes to have the city do it for them all winter. Go figure...
Quote:There are seasonal city workers that work in the summer (tending gardens, mowing grass, driving the leaf sucking trucks, etc.) some of them could become full-time or 3/4 employees. I really wonder how much there is to save by contracting it out, essentially a company would take some money for profit and pay the employees considerably less than city workers get paid, but the city already owns and maintains sidewalk plows and would presumably continue to run a maintenance department for vehicles.My recollection is that city of Toronto uses both parks maintenance staff as well as contractors to clear snow in winter. The contracts run from 01December to 31March. This sometimes causes problems when there's an early snowfall in November or late snowfall in April because the contracted staff and equipment aren't available.