More than eight weeks after the regional district’s Chief Administrative Officer’s (CAO) officially departed, the organization is looking to include funding for recruitment efforts into its budget for next year.
At the Oct. 28 Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) finance committee meeting, a recommendation to the board to include $60,000 for a CAO recruitment in the 2025 budget was made, with those funds to be sourced from operational reserves.
As of Oct. 29, the SCRD’s top job was not listed on civicinfobc’s online career opportunities page, but that local government has six other job postings open on the website. Civicinfobc identifies itself as “British Columbia's local government information hub." It has been in operation since 2000, “providing a wide variety of tools and information resources for those who work, or have an interest, in the province's local government sector,” including job opportunity listings.
Who else is looking for a CAO?
Civicinfobc currently has listings for three local government CAO positions, including an opportunity with the City of Colwood. That Vancouver Island community (population 22,000) offers an annual CAO salary of between $174,000 and $235,000 depending on experience. (In 2023, McKinley was paid just over $250,000 in his third year as the SCRD’s CAO.)
The two other listings are for CAO jobs with jurisdictions of fewer than 5,000 residents. In those cases, salary ranges of $113,000 to $160,000 per year are listed.
Looking at CAO employment opportunities farther afield, the online service Municipal Info Net lists CAO opening in Orillia Ontario and a temporary posting in Sylvan Lake, Alberta. No salary details are posted in those listings.
The time period between posting and closing on those job listings viewed by Coast Reporter was as short as 24 days and as long as four months.
Acting CAO in place
Since May, the SCRD’s head of finance, Tina Perreault has been doing double duty in that job and as acting CAO. On Aug. 28, CAO Dean McKinley announced he would be officially leaving as of Aug. 30, and the organization stated Perreault would be continuing to fill in while it sought a new individual to fill that top staff spot.
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