The CFO and the consultant

At the Oct. 16 regular meeting of Penticton City Council, a staff report, regarding an IMT strategy, was authored by Jim Bauer, the city’s new chief financial officer, which recommended: “THAT Council endorse the Information Management and Technology (IMT) Strategy presented by Bauer Consulting and refer the financial implications IMT Strategy to the 2017 Budget deliberations.”

In my opinion, it is, at the very least, inappropriate, that Mr. Bauer “the CFO” would make a recommendation to Council to endorse the IMT strategy presented by Mr. Bauer “the consultant.” In fact, I suspect that there is a strong implication of a potential conflict of interest.

I have no basis to question the validity of the recommendation but the report should certainly have been written by someone other than the author of the strategy document (in his engagement as a paid consultant.) While it is likely that Bauer Consulting has already earned and been paid for their services, it would be hard to imagine that Mr. Bauer “the CFO” could provide Council with an unbiased evaluation of a report prepared by Mr. Bauer “the consultant.”

Furthermore, when the “financial implications” of the strategy come before council for consideration as part of the annual budget process in the weeks ahead, it will be the same Mr. Bauer (CFO) who presents the financial plan. Seems to be a tad incestuous! Of equal concern is that no member of council or senior staff considered this situation as a real or perceived conflict of interest and took steps to insure Mr. Bauer was not directly involved in the recommendation to council... for his sake, theirs and ours.