by Carl BR Johnson
June 3, 2013
Photo by Carl BR Johnson — The City of Dawson Creek has been chosen to undergo an audit.
Dawson Creek’s finances are about to put under a large magnifying glass but City Council is not concerned.
“I’m not at all worried about it,” said Charlie Parslow, acting mayor for May and June. “We have an extremely competent staff here.”
Dawson Creek was chosen at random by the Clark government for the audit and the office of the Auditor General for Local Governments (AGLG) will choose someone to take a closer look at the City’s finances.
Parslow said that the people of Dawson Creek have nothing to worry about either since this audit has to do with municipal accountability of the expenditure for capital projects.
“This is a provincial government matter. The Clark government establishment this mechanism (the auditing process) as a ‘check and balance’ for municipal affairs.”
The date for Dawson Creek’s audit has not yet been confirmed, but 18 communities across the province will have their audits completed by March 31, 2014.
Shelly Woolf, Dawson Creek’s chief financial officer, and Jim Chute, chief administrative officer, will be on hand with the auditors when they arrive sometime in the near future.
“It’s tremendous news,” said Chute.
“On a political level, my council was very supportive in the creation of the AGLG.”
He said that one reason why he strongly supported such a position within the province is because the AGLG office may in fact, help the City’s administration find ways of saving money for future capital projects.
“We’re particularly fired up about this audit because, on the hand we don’t know what the outcome will be, but on the other hand, we hope that we can find ways of saving money.”
Chute pointed to a project that would create a new water line to a water source that may cost more than they expect it to.
“That project has the potential to be more expensive than any other of our capital projects in the past,” he said.
As far as the cost of the endeavour goes, he said the auditor general is on the payroll of the province, but locally, Chute said, “the only cost will be our staff’s time – there will be no external billing.”
Chute said the identity of the auditor heading the effort in Dawson Creek is unknown to them at this time.
He reiterated that the auditor general has no authority over local governments to take any action against the City’s finances.
“Everybody will be pleasantly surprised,” said Janet Loiselle, deputy chief financial officer – temporarily standing in for Shelly Woolf. “We are very diligent within our department.”
City Council may not have anything to worry about, but some experts say the audit may amount to nothing more than, “an expensive PR campaign.”
Charles Lammam, a senior economist with the Fraser Institute, said these audits lack the power to actually change anything within local governments’ processes.
“My concern is that if this audit is conducted like the federal audit, by the federal auditor general, it creates a buzz when the audits are released, but in the end, no action is actually taken to curb finances.”
He also said the AGLG wouldn’t take any public action or comment if the City decides to take part in any capital project activity.
“If the AGLG won’t publicly criticize the local government they’re auditing, then there won’t be an improvement in city processes.”
However, Lammam conceded that while this exercise may amount to nothing in the end, he said that it is a valuable tool in examining the local government finances.
“It’s great to have government finances audited. But let’s move beyond that and what will result of this?” he said.
He added that if the AGLG exposes problems within the City’s finance processes, there is no requirement by local governments to correct that behaviour.
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