FREEING UP PUBLIC FILES
Minister plans to act on fees
In the face of new evidence that local governments regularly ignore requests for public documents or charge exorbitant fees to fulfil them, the minister who oversees Saskatchewan’s municipalities says help is on the way.
Government Relations Minister Lori Carr said the province was acting already before a Saskatoon Starphoenix and Regina Leader-post investigation found that numerous municipalities are failing to respond to requests for public information, or charging hundreds of dollars to furnish the information.
She’ll soon have the power to hold back money from municipalities that don’t provide certain documents to her ministry, and she expects a new web portal to launch in 2021 that will centralize access to public accounts for Saskatchewan’s 774 local governments.
It will take longer to expand that system to include other public documents such as the ones the newspapers sought, but Carr said it will become easier and cheaper to access public files when it’s all in place.
“We were hoping that that would take care of any issues moving forward,” she said. “That would be ultimate transparency from every level of government.”
This fall, the Starphoenix/leader-post emailed every city, town, village, resort village, northern municipality and rural municipality in Saskatchewan to request their most recent operating budget and four items that all municipalities are mandated to have: an employee code of conduct, a council procedures bylaw, a council member code of ethics and public disclosure statements for council members.
In total, 541 municipalities responded to multiple requests from the Starphoenix/leader-post within 60 days, a total response rate of 70 per cent. A little over half of the municipalities — 405, or 52 per cent — provided some or all of the requested documents at no cost, or could provide website links where the information was publicly available. Those that charged for documents invoiced for a range of fees, with the heftiest bill coming in at $2,200.
Carr seemed surprised to learn about the challenges the Starphoenix/leader-post had in trying to obtain public documents.
“Obviously the government of Saskatchewan feels transparency is very important. The information that you were asking for from those municipalities is all information that they need to be providing us on an annual basis,” she said. “So I’m not really sure why you didn’t get a higher uptake when you requested the information.
“Right now, they’re required to have that information. When you request it, you’re entitled to get it. So the municipality should be providing that to you.”
Saskatchewan’s ombudsman has enough experience dealing with recalcitrant municipalities to know barriers aren’t unusual. Mary Mcfadyen’s
office has received about 400 complaints about local governments this year, including about 15 or 20 in which unresponsiveness to document requests played a prominent role.
Mcfadyen said everyone, no matter where they live, has a right to access municipal documents. In her view, it’s a way to hold a vital level of government to account.
“When you think about it, local government is the level of government that affects our day-to-day lives,” she said.
“It’s important that municipalities are able to demonstrate to the public that they are carrying out the duties properly and not in their own private interests.”
Existing legislation gives anyone the right to inspect contracts, financial statements, approved minutes, accounts and bylaws — whether or not they pay taxes in a given municipality. Municipal administrators are required to furnish copies of the documents within a reasonable time upon payment of a fee.
Individual government councils set the fee, but there’s a catch: It can’t exceed the reasonable costs of providing the documents.
In response to the Starphoenix/ Leader-post’s request, 24 municipalities said it would cost $100 or more to send the documents.
Mcfadyen signalled that her definition of “reasonable” is a great deal lower. “It shouldn’t be used to deter people from making requests,” she said.
The municipalities that charged for documents cited a wide range of costs for providing them, including fees for administrative time ranging from $25 to $65 per hour.
Mcfadyen said municipalities shouldn’t have been charging administrative fees for searching at all.
“They can’t charge for searching because, in theory, these are supposed to be available for public consumption or public inspection,” she said. “So it just has to be a reasonable cost to furnish the copy. That should be the photocopying, in our opinion.”
She thinks anything over 25 or 50 cents a page is pushing the limit. But some municipalities are charging $1, $2.50 or as much as $3.50 a page.
There’s little recourse for people seeking redress from exorbitant fees. Carr said the only option is going to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, a process that can take several months to produce recommendations that are not binding.
“Right now, this is the pathway that we have,” she said.
Carr pointed out that the commissioner’s recommendations may soon get more teeth. A bill now before the Legislative Assembly would give her the power to issue a directive forcing municipalities to follow recommendations.
But Carr argued the government’s work on the online portal, which may be held on the Sasktchewan.ca website, will virtually resolve all the barriers Postmedia met while requesting information. The 2021 date is still tentative, according to Carr’s chief of staff, and only public accounts will be included at first. Carr said she foresees this expanding to also house public disclosure statements, codes of ethics and at least some other documents municipalities are required to make publicly available.
“All of the municipalities will be required on an annual basis to actually be entering this information into that database,” Carr said.
Mcfadyen agreed the proposed portal would go a long way.
“To me, if (public documents) were available online, it would be very helpful. And it would probably save these administrators a lot of work,” she said.
“I think sometimes (administrators) are overwhelmed.”
Some local government administrators said they had difficulty responding to the Starphoenix/ Leader-post request because of heavy workloads and slim resources to keep up. A few administrators said they couldn’t provide the documents because they weren’t able to find them.
Carr said that falls well short of what the province expects, but she is aware some municipalities are “struggling.”
That’s why the province, along with the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, offer “great programs” to help local government administrators get up to speed, she said.
“There are people out there that are willing to actually go out and help these municipalities that are struggling. And when it comes to our attention, we talk to our partners and see if there’s anything we can do through the programs that they’re already running for these types of things and try to get them back on their feet.”
She mentioned peer-to-peer networks and targeted support for small municipalities that have difficulty hiring qualified administrators.
She also said municipalities can join together and share the services of licensed administrators, which can help address a shortage of administrators in rural and remote areas.
Carr resisted the notion that the province should forcibly amalgamate governments in an attempt to resolve the underlying capacity issues faced by municipal governments, many of which have been shedding population and losing their tax bases for decades.
Saskatchewan’s proliferation of municipalities puts it in a category all its own. There are just 1,500 people for every municipality in Saskatchewan — far less than in any other province. In Alberta, there are 11,400 people for each municipality.
Ontario, with a population of 14.57 million, has fewer municipalities than Saskatchewan (it has 444 compared to Saskatchewan’s 774).
Nova Scotia, which has a population just below Saskatchewan’s, has 50 municipalities.
Carr said she doesn’t believe the provincial government should force amalgamation or large-scale reform.
She said the provincial government is “all about municipal cooperation.” In her view, any efforts at consolidation need to be driven from the ground up.
“I think that’s something that they will determine as they move forward, how their structure will look. It’s not something we’d mandate,” she said.
“We always want to give them the opportunity to be successful on their own.”
When you request it, you’re entitled to get it. So the municipality should be providing that to you.