By Thia James

For the City, a correction is a sign of transparency

Mar 24, 2015 | 6:49 AM

It’s been two years since Prince Albert’s city council passed the multi-year water and sewer utility rate increase, and on Monday, the City revised its projected revenues.

In 2013, when the report was put together, the annual projected revenues was based on only one of the four revenue streams generating money in the water and sewer utility. While the forecasted percentage increases were correct, the amounts of money generated in 2013 and 2014 were significantly higher than expected.

City manager Jim Toye explained that administration reviewed the numbers in the original report and believes there was an error made.

Each spring, over the four-year period, administration is required to provide a report reviewing the status of the revenue. Toye went to work on the report this year and noticed that the revenues were much higher than first estimated.  For example, in 2014, the projected revenue was $250,000, but the utility actually generated $1,366,550. The difference between expectations and actuals is just more than a million dollars.

“We wanted to make sure that we’re very transparent with the public and with the City, citizens of Prince Albert that there was an error in the reporting and in the estimation that was given,” Toye said after the executive committee meeting.

Battle ready

Predators set to defend title as new PGLL season approaches

2h ago

Riderville

Riders Have Options Heading into Tuesday CFL Draft

7h ago

Weekend hockey

PAGC set to host largest Senator's Cup tournament to date

8h ago

The background papers of the original report weren’t divulged in 2013 to city council, he added.

It’s an anomaly that troubled Coun. Lee Atkinson.

“I guess I’m disappointed and I guess it’s maybe one of the illustrations of the pitfalls of a multi-year endorsement of rate increases over multiple years. Where, quite frankly, we didn’t do a great job of reviewing either the expenses or the revenues of the water utility rate in the second year or even more recently,” he said.

And getting the numbers right is important for Toye. He said administration has a responsibility to present accurate information to city council because that information helps them to make decisions.

“We want to make sure, that before city council makes a decision, that they have all the pertinent, accurate information before them,” he said.

As for the glaring nature of the error, since Toye took over the city manager position last year, he said it’s the first time he’s seen anything like this.

“I mean, they’ve had various solid administration[s] here. Very good people on their senior administration team. It’s the first time. I was surprised to see it, but having said that, I don’t think that anyone’s perfect,” he said, and added the way the numbers were run was correct, but they didn’t include all of that information in the report.

That was something Mayor Greg Dionne echoed.

“At the end of the day we got it right. We were increasing a $10 million budget by nine per cent. You do the math, it’s over a million dollars,” he said. Council, he said, budgeted for the correct amount.

The City has already taken measures to prevent similar mistakes from occurring in the future.

Dionne said that all reports that come to council that involve a financial matter have to be signed off by director of financial services, Joe Day. In this case, that was not done and policy wasn’t followed at that time, Dionne continued.

The signing off policy is more encompassing, as Toye explained. Matters of a legal nature require the city solicitor’s signature, and if a department manager prepares a report, the department’s director has to sign off on it.

“It goes through a process, and if there is a mistake there, we’ve sent [it] back. I’ve sent back memos and said ‘well, we need more information,’ or things like that … We take things very seriously.”

Toye said the City has a team of administration staff that sits down and discusses parts of a report that may not be correct or may require more information.

It’s just one of the safeguards the City has implemented when it comes to reports. There is now an issue-tracking system that allows administration to track requests for reports to prevent requests from falling by the wayside.

This particular problem is one that arose during Monday’s meeting. In 2007, council asked administration to hold public meetings and create a rental permit bylaw. According to a Feb. 25 report written by chief building official Kim Johnson, with the exception of the department’s director at the time, no one in the department knew about the motion.

In 2011, council instructed administration to look at Nipawin’s rental bylaw to see if a similar one could be implemented in Prince Albert. A subsequent report concluded that the legal implications would outstrip the gains.

Several years after the original request was made, Johnson’s report recommended that request be recinded.

Atkinson was disappointed that this “fell through the cracks.”

“I’m a bit mystified. I know there was a change from one mayor to another mayor in October of that year,” he said.

The City now has a system in place where anything that comes from city council with a direction to administration is included in a report put together by the city clerk after each meeting. Toye said whoever that information is supposed to go to, gets that information and then it’s tracked.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames