City moves forward with creation of an independent auditor's office
Credit to Author: Dan Fumano| Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 01:30:44 +0000
Vancouver took a step Wednesday towards the creation of an independent auditor’s office, a move that would bring it in line with other big Canadian cities.
In October, council directed city staff to begin work on establishing an independent office intended to monitor financial health and administrative efficiency. Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto, among others, already have a municipal auditor general that operates independently of city management.
Instead, Vancouver has an internal audit division, which reports to a committee of the city manager and other senior city staffers.
The October motion requested the city’s internal audit division present to council an overview of its work in recent years,. Council heard that presentation Wednesday.
The city’s audit division has an annual budget of a little under $900,000 and five full-time employees, including certified accountants and auditors, said Tony Hui, the city’s chief of internal audit. Over the years, the division has examined city departments including parks and recreation, engineering, and human resources.
NPA Coun. Colleen Hardwick, who introduced the October motion calling for tan independent auditor’s office with a $1 million budget, said Hui’s presentation was “very informative.”
The work of Hui’s audit team is “important and it’s a significant piece of the larger accountability relationship that exists between council, staff, and the people we serve,” Hardwick said. But the creation of a separate, independent auditor general that reports directly to council independent of city management, she said, “is essential to the accountability relationship with the people we serve.”
After the presentation, deputy city manager Paul Mochrie, who is part of the audit committee to whom the internal audit division currently reports, said the creation of an independent auditor is “clearly a direction they (council) are looking to take, and our job now is to advise them on implementation of that, to make it work.”
B.C. also has an office of auditor general for local government, which was established in 2012 to conduct audits on municipal governments to help them deliver services more efficiently and economically.
Gordon Ruth, B.C.’s auditor general for local government, said Wednesday that Vancouver’s council has recognized that his office has a wide mandate covering more than 190 local governments around B.C. ranging from small villages to big cities, and sees value in the role of a local, independent municipal auditor general focused full-time on the City of Vancouver.
In the eight years the office of the auditor general for local government has been in operation, it has not conducted any performance audits in the City of Vancouver.
As the next step in the process, Hardwick is proposing a council subcommittee to work on setting up ad auditor general office. That motion is expected to be debated next month.