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“We’ve ratcheted back on departmental budgets, there’s not a lot of free money just hanging around to be able to accommodate people,” city manager Jeff Fielding said Tuesday. “The biggest pushback from senior management is, ‘where I’m going to place this person? And how I’m going to pay for this person’s return to work?’ ”

City administration gave the example of a bus driver who is injured and temporarily unable to operate a vehicle: they may not be immediately able to return to driving, but they might be able to return to work performing data collection on CTrain platforms.

“A job has to be created. We were waiting in the past to find a job that might be open. Now we can’t wait, we have (three) days to get people back to work,” Fielding said. “We’re going to have to essentially create a job and find the budget dollars. So the $10 million would backstop the creation of that job.”

And in the case of a job like a bus driver, the city also must also bear the cost of filling the position left vacant by the injured employee.

The city said failing to comply with the new rules around accommodation would ultimately be more costly, since the city could accrue significant penalties and fines from the Workers’ Compensation Board.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the new standards might be occasionally difficult to meet, but they’re ultimately better for workers and the city.

“The city (really) wants to figure ways to both contain costs and to bring people back to work as soon as possible,” Nenshi said. “Because that’s the right thing to do for a human being, too, rather than have them sit at home. Bring them back, have them doing something meaningful as soon as you can.

“It’s work that we need to do anyway.”

The $10-million fund must still go to a full vote of council for final approval.

mpotkins@postmedia.com

Twitter: @mpotkins