The City of Chestermere is investigating employee pay-outs of nearly $600,000.
During the July 26 special meeting of council, city administration was directed to hire an outside source to investigate employee pay-out packages of almost $600,000 that were given to two former staff members.
The employee’s resignation was in violation of the city’s policy where council must approve payments over $75,000, a City of Chestermere media release said.
“The irregular payouts show both employees resigned and were only legally entitled to two weeks of salary in lieu as per the Alberta Employment Standard Code,” the release said.
If the employees were terminated, they would have received $56,000, however, one employee received $400,000 and the other $200,000.
“These financial irregularities were discovered after the current mayor and council took office with a mandate to improve transparency and accountability of Chestermere City’s finances,” the release said.
Going forward, an outside expert will be hired to assist city administration to investigate the pay-outs.
Following the investigation city administration will report back to council the reason why the severance packages were paid out without council’s approval and uncover if other severance packages were paid out without council’s approval.
City administration will evaluate the current employment template and make changes to ensure contracts follow the city’s employment policy, evaluate severance templates to ensure future severance agreements don’t breach the city’s employment and severance policy, and change the payroll and banking policy to a three-person coded system where the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Finance Manager, and Mayor must sign off on all payment releases.
“We were elected on a promise of increased transparency and accountability, and this is part of the process of keeping our promise to the taxpayers of Chestermere. This matter was brought to our attention by city staff, and we are grateful that they support our mandate of increased transparency, which will ensure the full accountability of tax dollars as we move forward,” said Mayor Jeff Colvin in the release.
City council has also directed the finance department to investigate financial irregularities involving the former Chestermere Utilities Incorporated (CUI) company.
The financial irregularities were presented to council during the CUI dissolution public hearing on July 19.
Details of the irregularities were submitted to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
“We are asking for the provincial inspection to include the financial irregularities detected at CUI and the bloated employee pay-out packages brought to our attention by staff,” Colvin said.
With new reports of allegations concerning improprieties involving hundreds of thousands of dollars recently released in press reports by the City of Chestermere, while an Inspection is underway, The Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver should take a look at a related situation that occurred during in Saskatchewan. In 2014 While Commissioner Ron Barclay Q.C., a retired Queen’s Bench Judge, was conducting an Inspection into the matters of the R.M. of Sherwood, it soon became apparent after conducting examinations under oath with subpoenaed persons and reviewing thousands of documents that much more was at stake. Barclay paused the Inspection and issued an Interim Report. Because of the terms of reference for the Inspection, Barclay could not investigate or report on the conduct of council members. To get to the bottom of everything, Saskatchewan Minister of Municipal Affairs issued an order for an Inquiry. At the conclusion of the Inquiry, it was revealed that one councillor stood to make millions from potential land development due to a conflict of interest. Other corruption was exposed as well.