Watch above: Municipal councillors in Fort McMurray say poor judgement has led to an alarming series of recommendations. Fletcher Kent has more on the millions spent on severances and benefits with little or no oversight.
EDMONTON – It’s the home of our province’s economic engine, but the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo now has some explaining to do.
An audit was ordered looking into some questionable spending, and what it found is that there is a lot of work to be done when it comes to accountability and transparency.
While no one broke the law, KPMG — the accounting firm which conducted the audit — says there is a serious lack of policy and procedures in place. And some appear not to be following the policies that are in place.
Forty-six recommendations were made in nine areas, including governance, council policy, land acquisitions and expropriations, consultants and contractors, and the one that appears to be the largest issue: travel and living expenses.
The report says in an overall observation of travel and living expenses, that there was “no documented evidence of a policy or procedure or regular monitoring over fly-in-fly out, temporary housing accommodation, or taxable benefits could be provided.
“Within expense reports, instances of unevidenced approval, non-compliance with expense policies, and self-approval of expenses were noted.”
The self-approval included some instances where the mayor approved her own expenses. KPMG says that the municipality did not have a mechanism in place to provide further review of the mayor’s expenses but Mayor Melissa Blake says that issue has already been addressed.
“The difficulty is when you are at the top of the apex, there’s nobody superior to you to approve your expenses,” said the mayor.
“So the audit budget committee actually took appropriate actions before this report came out.”
Blake also said she still isn’t sure how these problems continued for so long, adding some of the problems are complex.
Council calls these findings alarming and vows to implement all recommendations.
On Tuesday morning, one councillor said it might have been cheaper and faster for KPMG to provide a list of everything it was doing right instead of all it was doing wrong.
When asked about accountability in Wood Buffalo, Premier Jim Prentice said if there has been any misappropriation of funds, he won’t hesitate to get involved.
You can read the full audit, which covers 2011 to May 2014, below:
With files from Quinn Ohler, Global News
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