Yeah, sure – just tell us where we stand within, say $100,000. – but don’t wait till the end of the year to tell us we might be in trouble.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON June 23, 2011 -“The mantra” explained Councillor John Taylor was “no surprises” The comment was made during a portion of the Budget and Corporate Services Committee meeting at which Current Budget Variance reporting was being discussed. These meetings fall into the “watching paint dry” category but this one was in a league of its own.

Late last year Council got a severe jolt when they learned there was going to be a surplus in excess of $9 million – which while good news that allowed a lot of problems to be taken care of, nevertheless reflected really sloppy accounting.

Senior staff had good explanations that Council accepted. They wanted to ensure that this type of thing didn’t happen again.

Municipalities have access to some very advanced and sophisticated software and allow, if properly set up, for almost instantaneous data that tells senior staff if they have gotten the revenue they expected and if expenses were in line with the budget.

Acting Executive Director Joan Ford has to deal with a Council that brings more financial heft than past Council’s to the Chamber.  They will want her to sing different notes in the months ahead.

Acting Executive Director Joan Ford has to deal with a Council that brings more financial heft than past Council’s to the Chamber. They will want her to sing different notes in the months ahead.

Acting Executive Director Finance Joan Ford explained that processes have been improved to make financial information available in a more timely schedule. When there is a variance on either the revenue (your tax dollars) and expenses of more than $100,000. all kinds of red flags were to go up and reports made.

Councillor Dennison said he didn’t think the focus should be on an amount but rather than on the percentage of variance. A variance of $100,000 on a multi-million dollar project isn’t that worrisome but a variance of 15% on that multi-million dollar project matters.

Ms Ford undertook to ensure that the % of a variance was a key element in her reports.

What was disturbing – (is that the right word ?) was that financial data for the period ending June 30th isn’t available until the end of August – and that seems like a long time.

Every household opens the envelope with the credit card statement and knows within six days after the end of the month what is due. So why can’t city hall with all the software and computing power it has not get reports out with ten days of the close of a month?

The finance department produces semi annual reports and needs at least two months to get data into the hands of the people who make the decisions. They also produce a quarterly – top line report that gets into the hands of the decision makes “in about a month or two”.

The little guy who takes in the dry cleaning and shirt laundering that every member of council and staff spend some of their money on knows by the end of the day what his sales are and if they were high enough and sometimes all they have is a pencil and a pocket calculator.

Councillor Craven tends to look for the smaller but nevertheless telling detail and has asked for data on the number of staff vacancies.  He doesn’t want a repeat of the gapping fiasco of last year.

Councillor Craven tends to look for the smaller but nevertheless telling detail and has asked for data on the number of staff vacancies. He doesn’t want a repeat of the gapping fiasco of last year.

Someone on this Council should be asking for a very detailed explanation as to why numbers aren’t available within two weeks of each month end. General Motors can do it; the banks do it and they work in billions and in several different currencies.

Councillors Taylor, Sharman and Dennison all know how critical a financial report is. Hopefully their experience and financial acumen will result in their insisting on more timely financial reporting.

Taylor put it perfectly when he said – “early warming please” – “be honest and no more waiting until the end of the year.”

One of the reasons for the surplus last years was the number of hires that were not made even though funds for the hire were in the budget. Councillor Craven wanted a bit of a heads up and asked Roy Male, Director of Human Resources to let him know how many vacancies there were and which vacancy was the oldest.

This Council is going to actually count the beans and not leave that task to just the bean counters.

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