By Stephen Vance -

Where are the 2008 audited financials?

The question was asked again by Councillor Jim McPherson on Tuesday night, and once again the reply was, well…”soon”.

It is somewhat baffling why in the middle of October we still haven’t seen the audited financial statements for the 2008 budget year.

CAO Frank Miele has after all repeatedly expressed a desire to have 2010 budget talks well under way in December, so you’d think that in order to prepare for that, it would be important to know the status of the 2008 budget and the deficit that it will likely show.

On June 8th BDO Dunwoody came to council to present their “Terms of Engagement”, which in effect was the beginning (albeit a late beginning) of the audit period. During that meeting the discussion that took place seemed to indicate that we should have expected the audit report by the end of the summer.

And now here we are in mid October, and no audit report.

At the last regular meeting of council in September, McPherson asked when the report could be expected, and the answer at that time was that it was the hope of the CAO that it would be ready for the next Committee of the Whole meeting which was yesterday.

When asked in a follow up question at that September meeting why it wasn’t ready yet, the CAO responded with a disheartening but not entirely surprising- “The books were a mess.”

At the meeting yesterday, Tuesday October 13th, when asked again by Councillor McPherson when the audit report could be expected, Miele said that he was hoping to meet with the auditors next week which would mean that at best the report would be presented to council at the October 26th meeting.

It would be nice to have a little more information. What are the reasons for the delay for example? Have there been issues with the auditors? Are the books really in that much of a mess? If so, why?

After the council meeting yesterday, I asked Councillor Harley Greenfield, who is a member of the Committee of Adjustment, for his thoughts on the absence of a report. Greenfield indicated that ‘part-time-volunteer financial consultant/acting treasurer’ David Kennedy has not been available lately to get everything wrapped up.

If that is the case, you can’t really fault Kennedy as he isn’t an employee, and he has been doing a lot of work for the municipality free of charge, and he really doesn’t have any obligation to the municipality at all…

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