Julie McLaughlin
Fast Forward sifts more than 1000 city hall documents
It was one of the biggest political stories to hit Calgary’s city hall in years: the city auditor had uncovered serious problems with procurement practices. She “pretty much guaranteed” fraud was occurring. The media and some members of council picked up the story and ran wild with it.
And when the dust settled city auditor Tracy McTaggart was turfed — fired after an overdue review revealed serious problems within her office. Yet the general public consensus was that city hall’s watchdog was disposed of before she could blow the whistle on her employers causing lots of damage during an election year.
A few months later during last summer McTaggart and city lawyers swiftly agreed to a financial termination settlement. And when McTaggart received her undisclosed out-of-court dismissal settlement from the city she agreed not to publicly talk about the sensitive matter. To this day several crucial questions remain unanswered. More than 1000 documents obtained by Fast Forward Weekly — including briefing notes media strategies and emails via Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy — reveal a behind-the-scenes look at McTaggart’s demise.
‘LET’S PICK THIS APART’
McTaggart landed the city auditor role in 2005 with high expectations. As Ottawa’s city auditor she uncovered rampant misuse of the city’s credit card program by bureaucrats. Her position in Ottawa was quickly eliminated and a new independent auditor general position was created — one she was passed over for.
Hopes in Calgary were that McTaggart would work with tenacity. But her six-year Calgary stint wasn’t a smooth one as an independent review of her office would later reveal. Staff morale was reportedly low. Employees were jumping ship. Audit reports were taking years to complete.
“We did as much as we could with the people we had at any given time” McTaggart reflects in a telephone interview. (From 2007 to 2010 the auditor’s office hired 17 staff members and 13 had left.)
In early 2010 the audit office and city administration were working feverishly on a much anticipated and ultimately damning report about the city’s contracting process. But at that point the report was a mess packed with inflammatory statements that lacked evidence.
On February 10 members of McTaggart’s audit team made a PowerPoint presentation to high-ranking city officials including chief financial officer Eric Sawyer and city treasurer Beng Koay. Neither man left impressed.
In an email Koay described the meeting as “bizarre and strange.” Sawyer called it “one of the most confusing ill-thought-through and incoherent presentations.”
“There is an hour of our lives we’ll never get back” Sawyer wrote to Koay shortly after the meeting. “My sense is that we’re going to have to go to battle on this one — way too many statements being thrown out that are inflammatory.”
Sawyer expressed concern that the audit team was making assertions based on guesswork rather than evidence. “Let’s pick this apart” he wrote in an email.
In a recent interview Sawyer told Fast Forward Weekly : “When the report came to us in draft form we had a number of people scrutinizing it for a number of concerns.”
It turns out Sawyer had reason to worry. McTaggart a veteran auditor was struggling to nail down a definition of what constitutes sole-sourcing and single-sourcing contracts — something that one would assume should have been established from Day 1 given that it’s so crucial yet basic to an audit focusing on the city’s contracting practices.
As well her team was having trouble tracking down specific files including several electronic records — ones McTaggart would later claim were missing prompting many people including aldermen and the media to jump to the conclusion that something was terribly awry at city hall. (After a big bruhaha over the “missing” files neither side — the auditor’s office and top city bureaucrats — could agree with what really happened which ultimately points to a massive communications failure.)
Despite all the bumps the audit report was slowly being cobbled together. City staff described late drafts of the audit as “reasonable and fair.” Meanwhile backroom politics were at play.
BEATING THE DRUM
Maybe it was the looming municipal election. Maybe it was the stinging loss in a provincial byelection only months earlier. Or maybe it was simply political posturing by a council member with a history of grandstanding.
As far back as February 2010 Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart was pressing McTaggart to release her findings. But as documents reveal the report was far from being completed. Yet Colley-Urquhart feared the audit committee would “drag their feet” until council shut down for the summer in July.
“Tracy by May or June the bridge construction will be well underway…” Colley-Urquhart writes in an email to McTaggart referring to the controversial Peace Bridge. “I thought you said this would come out early 2010 to get it out there before shovels are in the ground.”
“I hear ya” responds McTaggart in an email. However McTaggart added that the report would be delivered as promised in April or May.
Now McTaggart says she never felt pressured by Colley-Urquhart or other council members. “She had her opinion of what was going on and we did an audit as objectively and as fairly as we could without any preconceived notions.”
Ultimately the report was publicly released May 14. It was as anticipated scathing in its assessment of the city’s procurement practices: missing documents non-existent procurement polices and original order prices skyrocketing by $747 million. In the end the city agreed with much of the report vowing to clean up its act and implement all 13 recommendations.
Meanwhile the city’s communications department kicked into damage-control mode by “crafting management responses” predicting (with stunning accuracy) reporters’ questions and desperately trying to track down where information was leaking out of city hall.
“If you find the leak will flogging be allowed?” asked Ald. Druh Farrell in an email. The media she added “are not our buddies.”
McTaggart was under the microscope as well. Her job was on the line. A review of the auditor’s office long overdue was underway. By mid-May a draft review of McTaggart’s job and office which found “numerous deficiencies” was already sitting on the desk of audit committee chair Ald. Brian Pincott. It was scathing of the auditor’s performance.
Meanwhile McTaggart made a statement that changed the game. On May 20 under questioning from aldermen McTaggart stated she could “pretty much guarantee fraud” was occurring at city hall. That damning five-letter word never appeared in her report. It sent administration into high gear pouring over her audit report word for word number by number.
That accusation which McTaggart later denied saying (even though it was quoted by several news outlets) had “everyone stand up and pay attention” says Pincott. “It was the allegation of fraud that triggered administration to actually start digging into all of the numbers behind it and start saying ‘Hey wait a second.’”
McTaggart says no one should have been surprised by her comment. “It was certainly something that we were discussing all the way along” she now says.
Some council members perhaps soliciting public support as the fall election drew nearer rallied around McTaggart. Former alderman Ric McIver called her a “rock star.” He’s since toned down the rhetoric. “It’s never a good thing to accuse anybody of criminal activities if you’re an official unless you have evidence” he now says.
While city administration was reeling from McTaggart’s accusation Colley-Urquhart was praising the beleaguered auditor. “I am so proud of you and the volume of work that you have produced today and Tracy… the calibre of the work. Unprecedented” she wrote in an email. “Just need to get your contract done. We’re starting to roll.”
From the moment McTaggart released her report Colley-Urquhart managed to grab headlines and publicly criticize city administration. Yet at the same time she was playing nice behind the scenes “sincerely” thanking top officials.
“I have the utmost confidence after today that we have policies and procedures and reporting in place to be transparent open and accountable to those we serve… our employees and the citizens” she wrote just hours after McTaggart publicly alleged fraud.
Colley-Urquhart did not respond to Fast Forward Weekly’s request for an interview.
According to emails politicians and top bureaucrats were astonished by Colley-Urquhart’s blatant politicking. Playing both sides left city manager Owen Tobert “absolutely gobsmacked” and former mayor Dave Bronconnier was “so upset you can not (sic) imagine.”
Bronconnier responded by tearing a strip off of council members for jumping to conclusions before having all the facts in hand — in other words the audit report contained several errors and the fraud allegations were unsubstantiated.
McTaggart says Bronconnier’s reaction was disappointing. “I thought the audit raised some legitimate questions” she now says. “To come out that decisively in support of management I thought was uncalled for.”
A month later city council fired McTaggart. The external review of her office ordered a year earlier and strongly opposed by some council members found it only met two out of 11 industry standards.
Pincott says the entire audit process was riddled with problems. But in the end the buck stopped at McTaggart’s doorstep. “Council recognized that it was a leadership issue and hence the city auditor was terminated” says Pincott.
McTaggart exhibits a Zen-like attitude to the fiasco the media frenzy and her very public firing. “It is what it is” she says. Retirement she adds is “wonderful should have done it years ago.”
But some politicians believe that in the end Calgarians are the ones who suffered from the circus-like affair.
“It is incredibly frustrating when colleagues play politics fast and loose with the numbers with reports and with allegations” says Pincott. “At the end of the day when we’re doing that we’re not serving the city of Calgary.”
