City Blackberry costs soaring

 A municipal councillor is urging the corporation to require users of city-issued BlackBerrys and other wireless devices to switch them off at the end of the day to curb soaring costs.

“There’s no doubt, the temptation is there to become a slave to it — I think you can get carried away,” said Ward 3 Coun. Alan Halberstadt.

Halberstadt’s suggestion is designed to try to slow down the escalating cost to the city of its growing number of wireless devices.

Windsor spent nearly a third of a million dollars last year on BlackBerrys and cellphones, up from $200,000 in 2005, according to a report by city administration. The number of BlackBerrys over that period nearly doubled, from 40 units to 75 units, with staff pegging the average user cost at $1,250 per device.

But the report doesn’t reveal the true cost difference, which is much greater. The 2008 figure of $321,795 is after savings of almost $65,000 from dollar pooling, which now allows the accounts of heavy users to benefit from those of light users. And last year’s figure, unlike that of 2005, doesn’t include the cost of pagers, of which one city hall source said there could be up to 100 in use.

“It’s fair to say (the 2008 cost) is probably approaching double,” said Halberstadt. Last year, the city paid $228,052 for 387 cellphones and $93,743 for 75 BlackBerrys.

City administrators point to the benefits of having the devices, including a conservative estimate of up to two hours per week per user in “additional productivity which provides value that exceeds the monthly cost.”

Harry Turnbull, the city’s executive director of information technology, concedes that extra productivity comes in part from employees handling after-hours calls outside the workplace.

Turnbull said the current report doesn’t include the numbers and costs of pagers because it was not part of Halberstadt’s question last month on the matter.

Halberstadt said pooling groups of users and requiring a general manager to approve each new device being issued are good steps, but he adds that another “obvious” money saver he’s seen in other cities would be to have non-emergency users switch them off at the end of the workday.

Halberstadt speaks from personal experience as a recovering BlackBerry addict.

He now switches off his city-issued BlackBerry at night and at meetings and he has disabled the buzztone that alerts the user to every incoming message.

“I have to fight it. People in my family have suggested I’m a slave to it,” he said, adding the devices can actually be an impediment to productivity. “If you’re checking it constantly, how focused are you on the task at hand?” he asks.

You won’t catch Mayor Eddie Francis ever turning off his city BlackBerry.

“Trust me, it’s an addiction — I’d give it up if I didn’t have the responsibilities of being mayor,” he said. “I can’t be in my office 24/7, but my office can be with me 24/7,” he added.

Being mayor and having responsibilities during emergencies — whether it’s a murder, airport crash, fire or power outage — as well as being head of the police board and sitting on the airport board, utilities and tunnel commissions, Francis said he gets calls at all hours.

“It’s not healthy, it’s very intrusive,” he said, but it keeps him in constant touch.

He recalls being ordered by his wife on Christmas Day 2005 to turn off his BlackBerry but then sneaking off to check for any new messages. Sure enough, city officials were trying to reach him with news of an east-side doughnut shop that had blown up.

Now, he said, “My BlackBerry is on 24/7.”


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