Audit not complete: councillor

Council members will explain themselves in writing as part of the aftermath of the release of the expense review.

The report flagged a number of items, from Mayor Nolan Crouse claiming the same fees from both the Capital Region Board and the City of St. Albert to Coun. Wes Brodhead’s purchase of printer paper.

While council unanimously approved motions to have each councillor provide comments in writing to the city manager about the findings and the proposed new processes by April 17, and for those reports to come back later, a housekeeping motion to accept the report itself for information caused some debate.

Coun. Sheena Hughes and Coun. Cam MacKay, who both told the Gazette on Tuesday they felt an independent audit was still needed, raised concerns about the checks and balances in place at the city. They reiterated those concerns at the council meeting.

“To me it is not a complete report,” Hughes said at the meeting. She told her colleagues an independent auditor would have done more validation of the expenses, such as more in-depth checks into meals and travel.

While the staff-led review process has been enlightening, Hughes said, it shouldn’t overshadow the main issues of a lack of checks and balances to double-check claims.

She said there is clear indication that more scrutiny is necessary.

“This is just simply a tip of the iceberg,” she said.

Later in the meeting, she issued notice to the rest of council that she plans to make a motion about having an independent auditor look at the expenses at a future meeting.

Hughes also asked city manager Patrick Draper to furnish council with a list that itemized meal claims that didn’t have receipts, and mileage claims that didn’t indicate a start and end point.

Draper declined to take it as a simple information request, telling Hughes his staff had already put 243 hours into the review. He asked to have council vote on a motion if he was to provide the list.

Council did not vote on any such motion.

While council largely decided to get into details about specific claims in a few weeks time, after each member has had a chance to submit comments in writing, they did have a number of general questions for Draper about the report.

The city manager did note the staff that conducted the review are not certified auditors. But Draper also pointed out that an audit usually would take a sampling of information, whereas the unnamed staff team that conducted the review looked at all the expense claims.

Hughes suggested that there are auditors who would do a 100 per cent review if asked.

MacKay asked about the claims that are missing receipts, as many councillors had claims that were missing some, and Draper said city staff has no authority to force councillors to submit receipts for claims the way he can with city employees.

Draper said the RCMP assigned a “highly-trained specialist” to review the report, and that officer did ask for a significant amount of information before concluding the file without charges.

Coun. Cathy Heron said she’s looking forward to seeing councillors’ comments on the findings and to having updated policies and procedures in place.

Crouse did make a short speech on Tuesday to council.

Some items might appear to be double-billed, he said, but he really did drive to Leduc twice in one day, as well as doing two trips to the River Cree Casino for an event.

“I will reconcile all,” Crouse said.

He is pleased with the policy review and said “a lot of clearing up is needed,” noting he’s signed nearly 1,000 expense forms in his time in office and, prior to last fall, didn’t spend too much time reviewing them.

Now that Crouse scrutinizes the forms more closely, he says he finds errors, and he is sorry for not being more accurate.

He also pointed out the mayor’s expense forms also cover expenses incurred by whoever the deputy mayor is at the time, so perhaps that process should change.

Crouse’s math shows that the Capital Region Board owes him $48.64, which he said has already been paid, a lost expense report for the city was found and paid him $1,322.05, and the city corrected errors from 2014 and paid him a little more than $1,200 to reconcile them. He pointed out an expense form that wasn’t submitted was found for Heron and she was paid out for those missed claims as well.

His guess is that he still owes $1,077.89 and that the city owes him $597.66, but the numbers still need to be formally reconciled.

The city manager declined to comment to confirm any of Crouse’s numbers or payments at this time.