Mayor Dan Hamilton and councillors Michelle Mackenzie and Robin Kurpjuweit during the Tuesday County council meeting.--News photo Anna Smith
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
Cypress County has elected not to return to a monthly viewing of accounts payable by council.
The motion was brought forward at a previous council meeting by deputy mayor Shane Hok as a notice of motion, with intent to be debated Tuesday. The motion posited that it would allow for greater transparency and accountability to ratepayers, and that policy decisions had been made in the past due to reviewing accounts payable.
However, there were concerns this would not be a correct use of council’s time, and could shift the focus from oversight to overreach.
“I want to start off by saying that I echo the desire for transparency, and I echo the desire for accountability,” said Coun. Robin Kurpjuweit.
However, he expressed concern that having the entirety of accounts payable and receivable as an agenda item could create a shift toward micromanagement of transactions, as well as risk exposing sensitive information.
“Council’s role is to approve budgets and set policy, not scrutinize individual transactions. Within our budgets, we may approve a budget of $2 million for a specific project,” said Kurpjuweit. “By having the accounts payable and going through we’re scrutinizing line item by line item, there could be 300 different line items that would be under scrutiny when we’ve already approved that on the overall budget.”
It was noted that having each budget line item visible could lead to catching errors, fraud or mismanagement that may otherwise slip through and increase accountability to ratepayers by having everything visible, as well as ensure funding was being used in a way that aligned with council’s direction. However, Coun. Michelle Mackenzie pointed out that accounts payable was previously an agenda item early during her first term, but was removed, eventually returned to the agenda, and removed again.
She says removing all the information that could not be placed on the public record would take three to five hours of staff time each month, which is not time administration staff have to spare, and expressed she would sooner direct staff to use this time to move “full steam ahead” as directed in the strategic plan.
There were also remarks that the current format with which council is apprised of the work of various departments in the form of quarterly reports may be more accessible to the public than monthly AP listings, which can be difficult for someone unfamiliar with the format to decipher.
“I believe, as a councillor, it is our job to set policies and bylaws and to set a budget. I also believe that we have the ability to ask questions and decipher the budget as we’re going through the year, to be accountable to our rate payers,” said Coun. Blaine Brost. “And I think we get that ability through our quarterly updates. I think we need our staff to continue working on the projects that we have at hand.”
The motion was ultimately not carried, with accounts payable remaining off of council agendas.
