Halifax Transit still needs standard repair times

Halifax Transit still has yet to complete two bus maintenance recommendations made by Halifax Regional Municipality’s auditor general two years ago.

In a report released Wednesday, municipal auditor general Evangeline Colman-sadd said Halifax Transit has yet to develop standard repair times for performance evaluation and review its small equipment inventory.

Colman-sadd presented her report during a virtual audit and finance standing committee meeting, which was not available to the public on Wednesday. She was not available for an interview before deadline.

"Standard repair times are useful for evaluating ongoing work efficiency," Colman-sadd said in her report. "While Halifax Transit uses standard repair times to assess efficiency for certain tasks, these have not been developed for all tasks."

Aside from the two outstanding recommendations, Colman-sadd found the other 13 recommendations she made in November 2018 have been completed.

Halifax Transit has managed to improve its bus maintenance by developing a preventative maintenance policy and asset management plan, established targets for bus maintenance key performance indicators, recorded warranties in its fleet management system and established better inventory processes.

The five recommendations ColmanSadd made on property tax management were also all completed.

In her January 2019 report, Colman-sadd found more than 150 people had access to HRM’S property tax information, despite not needing it.

“When people have access to the system that they don’t need, there is a risk of both fraud and error,” ColmanSadd told The Chronicle Herald at the time.

“There is a risk that changes can be made inadvertently that are not intended. You don’t want anybody to have access to the system that does not need that access for their daily job.”

But the municipality’s finance and asset management improved its property tax system user access and is monitoring changes made in the system.

It also has developed a detailed plan on when it plans to replace the property tax system with a new one.

Conclusions on the recommendations are “based on reasonability of what management tells us, and limited testing, rather than detailed testing, as would be found in an audit,” ColmanSadd said in her report.

“This allows us to focus limited resources on new audits, while still providing assurance that management is addressing the issues we identified in past audits.”