By Thia James

Council approves higher spending limits for staff

Dec 10, 2014 | 5:35 AM

Prince Albert has increased spending limits for members of its staff and council, in an effort to bring its limits more in line with other municipalities in the province.

Council narrowly passed the new purchasing policy with a 5-4 vote during Monday’s council meeting. The policy changes include spending limit increases will apply to members of the city staff, department heads, and the city manager.

The new spending limits are: up to $1,000 for out-of-scope employees, up to $10,000 for senior managers, up to $50,000 for purchasing agents/ department heads, and up to $100,000 for the city manager. Members of city council will have no spending limit.

With the new limits comes the additional requirement that all spending has to have sufficient budgetary funding to cover the purchase. If there isn’t sufficient funding for the purchase, then a report must be filed to the city manager or council asking for approval.

Mayor Greg Dionne was quick to point out the fail safes in place to prevent abuse of the policy.

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“But that doesn’t mean that a director can sign a document and get a cheque. It requires him, his signature, his department head. Then it gets signed by the director of finance. He’s our gate keeper. It’s just a check and balance and it’s just going to make us more efficient,” he said after the meeting.

The City provides purchasing cards to its staff, which is a work-issued MasterCard with its own daily, monthly and single transaction limits. The purchasing cards aren’t allowed to be used for personal spending and if it is, the cardholder has to pay back what they’ve wrongfully charged to the card out of pocket.

But the very idea of increasing the authorized spending limits concerned Coun. Ted Zurakowski. He ultimately voted against the revised purchasing policy, but not before he pointed to the lack of an explanation for the spending limit increases.

“I haven’t read, I haven’t seen the justification for that,” he said. “And for me to move forward on that, I haven’t seen the need. Maybe the need’s there. But the case hasn’t been proven to me yet.”

Coun. Don Cody too expressed his concerns about the new authorized limits, which he feels are “pretty rich.” He professed his trust in the City’s employees and their honesty, and turned towards city manager Jim Toye and said he trusted him with his life.

“The $100,000 wouldn’t bother me with him,” Cody said. “But you know something? Jim Toye isn’t going to be here all his life. But this is.”

He questioned the need for this kind of spending the authority and what the rush is on spending before council is made aware of the purchase.

Cody said he would support the amendments, and he did.

“But I do want to put up a red flag that this is something that’s pretty serious, pretty serious stuff,” he said and later added he is concerned on behalf of taxpayers.

The changes were aimed at putting Prince Albert at a similar level as other cities and towns across the province. Director of finance Joe Day told council that his department found the City’s policy had fallen behind other municipalities in terms of the approval limits.

A lot of the other communities in Saskatchewan have no approved limits for the city manager, and have levels at $50,000 to $100,000 for department heads.

“I think one was even $500,000 for their director levels,” he said.

But the changes were more about prioritizing the kinds of spending requests that go to council.

“That notwithstanding, that was just a matter of trying to clean up the processes so less of those fifty one thousand dollar items have to come to council all the time,” Day said.

He added the policy isn’t about allowing staff to buy items or pay for projects that are “off the list,” but the items and project s purchased have already been approved. He said if the items and projects have already been approved, this policy allows for that signoff.

The policy will now also allow city staff to sell surplus and obsolete items on eBay and Kijiji. As well, it outlines where staff will advertise tenders, including the city’s website and SaskTenders.

Additionally, Dionne added an amendment to the recommendation that passed to ensure that all contracts for consultants’ services would require city council’s approval.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames