Premier looking at municipal AG alternative
VICTORIA B.C.’s municipal auditor general could be shut down after a review being conducted by the provincial government.
Premier John Horgan said he’s exploring whether the B.C. auditor general, Carol Bellringer, could take over the responsibilities of the auditor general for local government, which was created by the previous Liberal government in 2013.
“I’ve spoken with the auditor general, Ms. Bellringer, about the capacity of the existing office to address the issues raised at the local government level, and she’s going to get back to me on her views of that matter,” said Horgan.
B.C. Municipal Affairs Minister Selina Robinson will also conduct a review of the local auditor general’s office, which is required by law after its first five years.
“I want to find out now is this useful? Is it a good use of dollars?” Robinson said.
“Is this valuable? That’s what this review is going to determine. Are they just exercises for the sake of exercises, or exercises that have value?”
Horgan promised while in opposition to dismantle the local auditor’s office, after a tumultuous early launch of the office and complaints from municipalities that they didn’t need a watchdog to oversee their spending.
Horgan reiterated last week that it was his preference to turn over the duties to the provincial auditor, but he’s also willing to consider the evidence presented in the review.
The local auditor’s office had a troubled start after being created in 2013 by then Liberal premier Christy Clark. The idea was to look for wasteful spending practices within municipalities, but the office itself was quickly beset by inefficiency, low morale and leaked human resources reports under its first auditor general, Basia Ruta.
Ruta was fired in 2015 after spending $5.2 million over two years, producing only three reports, and becoming locked in a legal dispute with the audit council overseeing her office. She sued government and settled out of court for $141,995.
“The whole thing is just a frigging disaster,” Robinson, then the NDP municipal critic, said at the time.
The government hired Gordon Ruth, an executive vice-president with the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C., to take over.
In an interview, Ruth said his organization has exceeded its performance targets in 2016 and 2017. He said he’s reversed morale issues, scored high marks in feedback from audited municipalities and recorded two consecutive years of local governments accepting 100 per cent of audit recommendations.
“At the end of the day, government will do whatever it decides to do,” said Ruth. “Our job is to assist local governments to provide good value for their tax dollars, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’ve been achieving the objectives of our mandate.”
Although the office website lists only two audits completed in the last 14 months — a review of local government’s role in ensuring clean drinking water in the City of Kelowna, and a report on emergency management in the Town of Sidney — Ruth said there were seven audits in the past fiscal year, exceeding the five reports on average produced annually.
The office budget remains
$2.6 million annually.
Local governments, through the Union of B.C. Municipalities, have long opposed the idea of a municipal auditor.
UBCM president Wendy Booth said she’ll participate in the provincial review, but the open question remains whether any municipalities are reading the audits, finding them useful and actually adopting the practices.
“We’ve made it clear that all options need to be on the table, and we don’t want to predetermine where it’s going to land,” Booth said. “The UBCM membership does not support the office of the local auditor general from Day 1, and a lot of that concern was how it was created and rushed into play. As part of this review, we’ll see if that position has changed or not.”
Liberal critic Todd Stone said he thinks the NDP is looking for political cover to shut the office.
“They ’ve been consistent in saying they’d kill the office,” he said. “We’ve been consistent in saying we think there’s merit in continuing to have this office as an additional layer of oversight and accountability on local government expenditure.”