TETLIT'ZHEH/FORT MCPHERSON - Stray dogs and sewage aren't all Toby Neuendorf has to deal with as SAO of Fort McPherson, but they're an essential part of the job.

Fort McPherson’s senior administrative officer, Toby Neuendorf poses with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a recent visit to Inuvik. - photo courtesy of Toby Neuendorf

He's five months into his position in the Mackenzie Delta hamlet of 775, fielding regular complaints about stray animals, making sure the water and sewage services are running properly and trying to find funding for residents' long-sought-after community swimming pool. But the Alberta native looks beyond those mundane immediate concerns to see Fort McPherson's potential as a burgeoning tourist destination.

The hamlet has been losing about 15 residents each year to schools and jobs in bigger communities - a fact that plagues Neuendorf and inspires him to find more incentives for the hamlet's recent high school graduates to stay in town.

"Part of what's exciting about this job for me is I see that trend and I would like to help reverse that trend - stop those graduates from leaving and start creating jobs and economic development so that more of those people that have left in the past will actually start moving back," he said.

"Our problem in tourism is, we don't have infrastructure. We don't have even a coffee shop in our community. So tourists that come through here, if they need gas, they stop for gas. But if they don't need gas, they just keep on going to Inuvik."

Neuendorf, a certified management accountant, previously worked as an Arctic College instructor in Arviat, Nunavut, teaching a one-year management studies certificate program.

This is his first position as a senior administrative officer and he said he enjoys the job because it allows him to put his number-crunching skills to use while working with the mayor and council to figure out creative ways to make social and economical progress in the hamlet.

"I wasn't really looking for an SAO job - more of a finance position - but I'm really glad that this job came up and that I ended up here," he said.

Neuendorf knows his job carries a high turnover rate - nearly all Beaufort Delta municipalities have had to find replacements for senior positions in the past year - but he said this problem might be solved if agencies such as the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) and the NWT Association of Communities (NWTAC) had authority to make hiring decisions for hamlets, a responsibility that currently falls on the mayor and council.

Fort McPherson has had a new SAO every year for the past four years.

"Most small community councils have a huge amount on their plate," he said, adding that giving input to another agency would take the burden off of councillors to hire qualified professionals and would allow the agency to serve as an arms-length third party. "When council and an SAO have a disagreement, that organization would act as an ombudsman."

"I believe that would also go a long way in reducing the turnover."

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