City Scapes

Saving on your electric bill

by Gary Reid

November 25, 2004

The Toronto Star recently published a helpful guide giving tips to reduce monthly electric bills. Apparently, if we all wear sweaters in the winter, turn down the thermostat and periodically breathe on our hands, we will save a lot. Washing our filthy clothes in cold water, resurrecting the extinct clothesline and unplugging the electric clothes dryer were amongst several other pieces of advice. You get the idea.

It got me thinking. How else could we reduce our electricity costs?

One way might be for Toronto Hydro to replace its chief financial officer, Wanda Liczyk. She is reportedly paid $320,000 a year and is currently absent on stress leave.

Her stress is not surprising after she recently completed testimony at the Bellamy judicial enquiry, examining the conduct of some of the civil service at Torontos city hall. It was not Wandas finest hour.

The evidence revealed that she had been an auditor at the former City of North York when she was hired and fast-tracked to the top financial post with the municipality. During that tenure she had a love affair with a Mr. Saunders, a supplier of computer consulting services to the city. She stated that she ended the affair, but remained friends with him. So friendly, in fact, that when she became the Treasurer at the amalgamated City of Toronto, she manoeuvred the city to adopt Mr. Saunderss North York software program, over the contrary advice of her staff.

After winning the contract, Saunders apparently traded on his intimate relationship with Liczyk by throwing his weight around with her staff, creating what could be characterized as a poisoned workplace atmosphere. On the witness stand, Wanda professed ignorance of this problem.

Other testimony identified payments rendered for thousands of dollars for improper billings by Mr. Saunders and another American systems supplier, all on her watch.

This had a familiar ring to it. The first phase of the Bellamy enquiry showed Liczyk had demonstrated an appalling lack of judgment in agreeing to be lavishly entertained by a financial services salesman who was soliciting business from the municipality. The contract that the salesman eventually secured cost Toronto millions of dollars more than the city council thought it had approved, which is what prompted the judicial probe in the first place.

On November 26, the board of Toronto Hydro is meeting to review the matter of Ms. Liczyk. Other than discussions pertaining to legal liability for the corporation, the result of the deliberations ought to be a foregone conclusion. Wanda has to go. The basic duty of a chief financial officer is safeguarding the companys money. It is a position of high trust.

Her reputation as a custodian of public funds is completely shot. Her ability to manage at an executive level is questionable. Her continuance at Hydro will be an embarrassment for the corporation and will always call into question the soundness of Hydros financial and management practices.

The problem for Hydro is that Wanda apparently hasnt done anything wrong in her job there--at least nothing that anybody knows about. So, if she is fired for what she did in some former job, will Hydro have to pay her an enormous severance?

This is what is prompting the mayor and several councillors to ask how she got the Hydro job in the first place. If there is evidence to suggest that there was malfeasance or corruption in the hiring process, there might be grounds to fire her without a severance.

They might also want to consider how she obtained an annual salary of $320,000. She joined Hydro in June, 2001. At that time, her city salary was $143,000. The current city Treasurer is paid around $194,000. So the pay for her old position with the city has risen by 36 percent in the past three years, while Liczyks jump to Hydro gave her a whopping 124 percent increase in the same period. She must bring something really special to Hydro to warrant that kind of personal financial improvement.

When corporations hire at Liczyks level, they commonly utilize the services of executive recruiting firms who vet dozens of qualified candidates to provide the company with a list of about five good potential employees. Search firms would usually question the suitability of a candidate for a position where the salary in the new job would be 50 percent, or more, higher than the salary he or she were making in the old one.

Toronto Hydro is a public corporation whose core business enterprise consists of local electric power distribution. Is it reasonably conceivable that the Hydro finance job could be more challenging and responsible than the city one?

If Hydro does replace Liczyk, it could go a long way to reduce our electric bills if it were less generous in doling out our money to its head bean counter. Then maybe we could all go back to washing with warm water.

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