‘We had wanted to do this two years ago but for a variety of reasons never got to it’
Several issues including fewer audits and poor staff retention need to be addressed during a “long overdue” review of the city’s top auditor says Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart.
Reviews of the auditor’s office which has a budget of almost $2 million are supposed to occur every five years. “We had wanted to do this two years ago but for a variety of reasons never got to it” says Colley-Urquhart who sits on the seven-person audit committee.
Tracy McTaggart city auditor since 2005 was granted a one-year extension after her five-year contract expired earlier this year. Her office has so far completed 21 of 85 listed audits in the past three years and 20 audits are scheduled for completion this year including an audit report next month on the city’s handling of the controversial $24-million Peace Bridge. “We put a lot of money into the auditor’s office so you’d expect things to be humming along” says Colley-Urquhart.
High staff turnover in the audit department is also a concern. “In the last three years we’ve hired 17 people and 13 have left” says Colley-Urquhart adding there appears to be “no evidence that exit interviews had ever been done” for those employees.
She plans to introduce an amendment at the next committee meeting to ensure “arms-length” exit interviews are made mandatory. “We really want to find out how well the office is operating before we make any commitments on a further contract” she says.
