Guelph needs a city Auditor General to end the Farbridge multi-million dollar mistakes

Posted June 29, 2014

Ontario’s Ombudsman, Andre Marin, recently addressed a gathering of municipal finance officials in London, Ontario.

He pointed out that 92 per cent of the 444 Ontario municipalities have no oversight of their finances and operations. In fact, only Ottawa, Toronto, Oshawa and Sudbury have Auditor Generals (A/G) overseeing their operations. Sudbury and Oshawa are on the verge of dumping their A/G’s because they delivered negative reports to the councils.

Yep, if you don’t like the message, just shoot the messenger.

The city will reply that Deloitte and Touche, a major independent audit and accounting firm, review city finances annually. Note the word “review”. Deloitte does not do an in-depth audit but employs parameters set by contract with the city.

An Auditor General, they’re not.

In Guelph, the council hired an internal auditor to dig into operations and she came up with a doozie reporting in 2013 city staff overtime costs were $5,067,000. It was twice that in 2012. Her investigations are only the tip of the iceberg that can sink the good ship SS Guelph.

Fortunately for citizens she’s still around. But her job is limited and controlled by senior staff. What is really needed is an Auditor General who has authority to oversee all city finances and operations without political interference.

The Auditor Generals, in the aforementioned cities, are appointed for five years. In the case of Sudbury the A/G appears to be surviving day-to-day. Oshawa renewed its A/G for only two years. This is against the provincial legislation that set up the municipal A/G system, requiring a five-year term of office.

Now along comes the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.  That organization, composed of elected officials from Ontario’s municipalities, is dead against the addition of Auditor Generals poking into their municipal operations.

Why is that? Both the federal government and most provinces have Auditor Generals overseeing their operations and finances. You don’t have to go very far to discover the need of such an independent officer in the City of Guelph.

In fact, last October, the citizen activist group, GrassRoots Guelph, delivered a four-page petition to the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing that detailed several instances of questionable financial mismanagement and operations.

The petition was signed by 162 taxpayers when the Revised Statutes of Ontario Act only required 50 signatures. Ministry officials later confirmed that the petition figures were accurate. Yet the Minister at the time, Linda Jeffery, rejected an audit of the city’s finances and operations with no explanation.

Shortly after, she left office to run for mayor of Brampton.

The Chief Administrative Officer of Guelph’s public servants called the citizen’s petition “a waste of time.” Minister Jeffery’s letter contained no such reference. So no matter what we complain about in Guelph, the majority of elected officials doesn’t care what citizens think or know about their governance of our city. On top of that, the senior executive directors of the Guelph staff share the same views as their political masters. It is apparaent that much of the staff has been politicized through threat of job loss and other intimidation.

What’s that old expression: “Go along to get along?”

It appears the deck is stacked against the citizens living in Ontario’s municipalities. This AMO entitlement attitude is endemic of the disdain for those who once elected them.

So far in this nomination period every member of council who supported Mayor Farbridge, has declared their candidacy, plus two former Farbridge councillors. As a public service, here are their names: Karen Farbridge; W2 – Ian Findlay; W3 – Maggie Laidlaw and June Hoffland; W4 – Mike Salisbury; W5 – Leanne Piper, Lise Burcher, Cathy Downer; W6 – Todd Dennis and Karl Wettstein.

There is only one-way citizens can protect themselves against these uncaring and arrogant politicians and that’s to defeat them October 27.

GRG is dedicated to informing voters of how their city and treasure have been abused by these councillors. Also, to encourage candidates for council who are motivated to return our city to fiscal responsibility, common sense and restoration of the public trust.

The 2014 election will either result in more of the same from the Farbridge administration or an election of a majority of council who will bring fresh ideas, energy and business to the city. Mostly, they will restore the public trust that has been sneered at by those in the administration. Overseers who feel they are entitled to treat the citizens as pawns in their grandiose schemes to change our city.

Step one is to hire an Auditor General for Guelph to level the playing field.

Guelph’s golden goose is already cooked

If you believe what Mayor Karen Farbridge says about Guelph’s stature as a great city admired across the country, don’t look further than the books of the city. In honesty, only the accounting firm of Deloitte and Touche gets to examine the books along with a high-powered packet of senior staff managers.

Close your eyes and get ready for the annual shell game of staff presenting a 5.6 percent tax increase knowing full well that Council will reduce it.

This year’s target of council is the old reliable 3 per cent increase. They do it every year because they can get away with it. Don’t let the taxpayers get too restless is the name of the controlling majority of Council’s game.

Since Karen Farbridge became Mayor, every budget tax increase has exceeded the cost of living inflation index by some 1.5 per cent. Chump change you say? Add it up over five years and the exponential cost is staggering.

Do you believe that tax increases since 2006 amount to more than 19 per cent over five years? Do you know that most residential tax rates in the City of Toronto are lower than in Guelph?

Why can’t staff bring in a budget that reduces city tax rates for change?

For two years the downward spiral of managing city finances has accelerated to the point where debt exceeds the Council-imposed limit; taxes are among the highest of any similar-sized city in the country and the city is unable to retain a professional chief financial officer to run the show.

Meanwhile the infrastructure of the city has been chaotic for almost four years. Millions has been spent on major arterial streets being narrowed, bike lanes, a time clock in the Sleeman Centre, the ice rink/water feature in front of City Hall, and replacement of aging water and sewer facilities.

Good stuff the citizen’s may say. A little sacrifice will only makes the city more livable … but for whom?

The latest staff screwball scheme to raise capital is to sell the streetlights to Guelph Hydro for $7 million. Problem! The city owns Guelph Hydro. Isn’t this a thinly disguised way to overcome the city’s debt crisis by giving to one pot and taking from the other? Note that it was Karen Farbridge who promoted selling Guelph Hydro two years ago. The people and a majority of Council axed that idea.

The Farbridge administration is gasping for air and not without reason. Complicit in all this is a failure to level with the taxpayers and tell the staff to get real. We have already sold the golden goose and it’s time for the staff to cut costs.