New revelations about City of Richmond’s rampant spending on gift cards are prompting more concerns and questions.
Freedom of information (FOI) request results for 2019 through 2021 obtained by Global News show that while some cards were bought for long-service employees, others indicate otherwise.
Receipts contained in the more than one thousand pages have markings on them saying they’re for “prizes,” “goals and accomplishments,” “team building,” “no sick time taken,” “prizes for Halloween,” and “take our kids to work day volunteer appreciation.”
Many indicated they were for “employee appreciation” and “staff recognition.” One receipt reads, “Gift cards for future staff appreciation.”
“It doesn’t seem any of these expenses are normal for municipal councils or staff, and it seems the financial controls were totally out of control, that someone was able to get away with it for so long, and it also seems like more than one person would have to be involved,” said Duff Conacher with Democracy Watch.
Taxpayers bought cards for Lululemon, Cineplex, Netflix, Fairmont Hotels, Petro Canada, Indigo, restaurants, Visa, and Mastercard.
In an email, the city said some cards were for a United Way fundraising campaign.
The documents follow Global’s reporting on earlier FOI results for 2022 through 2024.
The City of Richmond initially denied there was a problem. In one email, it said there was no gift card budget in the City of Richmond.
Later, the city admitted $295,000 worth of gift cards are unaccounted for.
So far, one person has been fired, while a forensic audit is going back 10 years and a criminal investigation is underway.
Not once over six years’ worth of documents does there appear to be a single email questioning the purchases.
“There should be a paper trail if these things were being bought for rewards or bonuses for employees, and if there isn’t that paper trail showing that, then it looks pretty much like people were using gift cards as a way of trying to cover up the fact they were really just taxpayer money to spend for themselves,” Conacher said.
The City of Richmond told Global News that an initial review of records for 2019-2021 suggests they followed procedures in place at that time.