A complete management oversight breakdown has prompted city councillors to ask that a new “cooling off period” be established as city policy.
The move comes after a scathing audit on Edmonton’s revolutionary sand recycling program revealed former city employees had a good working relationship with city middle managers when the recycling program was set up in 2005.
READ MORE: Scathing report shows flaws in Edmonton’s multi-million dollar sand recycling program
Word of the relationship, that was detailed in Thursday’s audit committee meeting, was troubling to Mayor Don Iveson, who added that the individuals no long work for the city.
Scroll down to read the full audit.
“The folks who were connected to this project and the managers who were supposed to oversee this, and were supposed to be reporting to council, applying the rigour that we expect, that those individuals either left to work for this contractor – which is troubling – or retired, or resigned along the way.”
Council has asked that administration investigate how a cooling off period can work.
READ MORE: Sand and salt strategy saving money and environment: City of Edmonton
“Council has asked us to – and I think after this we’re anxious ourselves – to define that more specifically in a policy and basically state if you work for the city, there needs to be a certain amount of time before you can work as a contractor for the city,” City Manager Linda Cochrane said.
“We have to pursue this cooling off period no question, to be confident that all of our staff understand that it’s not right to work for the city and then work for a company that works for the city in a very short period of time,” she told 630 CHED.
“We hold this organization and public dollars to sufficiently high standard that even the appearance of that, of any impropriety, should be avoided,” Iveson said. “So I support looking into it and if that’s the right mechanism, I support adopting it.”
“I would want to test whether that or another mechanism is what we need in place to avoid something like this where, at this point, there’s inconclusive evidence as to whether there was wrong doing. At this point, there’s the appearance of things, which is troubling.”
As for the program itself, new sand will be put on the streets this winter. The old sand is being stockpiled and hasn’t been cleaned or recycled, said deputy city manager for operations Doug Jones.
The city has bought 130,000 tonnes of new sand at a cost of roughly $2.5 million, which Jones said is approximately the same cost as recycling last winter’s sand.
Watch below: City of Edmonton under fire over its sand recycling program
A city employee blew the whistle on the current program, which sees sand recycled and re-used for the next winter. It cost about $7 million a year and was supposed to save $2.5 million per year, but the auditor saw problems and found that, while the city received a quality product, it overpaid for it.
The issue sparked a lot of frustration at City Hall Thursday.
“There is a lot of work continuing on this,” Iveson said, “including trying to understand whether there is a need for either legal action or further investigation involving other authorities outside of the City of Edmonton, but right now, it continues internally.”
Iveson said it hasn’t been determined if the sand-recycling program will continue. It’s still being studied, he said.
With a file from Global News
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