City council rejected a pair of proposals on Monday, which would have increased government
transparency at City Hall.
On Oct. 17 Coun. Brian Skakun called on the city to disclose its expenses and expenditures in monthly reports to city council, in the same format as the City of Quesnel does.
In the same meeting Coun. Garth Frizzell proposed the city proactively disclose all the results of Freedom of Information requests on its website. The B.C. government has adopted a similar policy.
“The City of Quesnel has managed to do this. We need to do more than the minimum standard,” Skakun said. “I think the people in the municipality want to know, and need to know, how we spend our money in better detail.”
City council voted against both motions, based on the advice of the finance and audit committee, which found it would take an additional 64 to 90 hours of staff time per year to do the work.
Currently the city reports its spending in annual budgets. In addition, the city annually prepares a list of all vendors the city has spent $25,000 or more with for the year.
City corporate services director Kathleen Soltis said the city doesn’t currently track its monthly expenditures in a monthly report.
“We provide the information yearly. It’s at a very high level,” Soltis said. “If any specific information was requested, that would be a Freedom of Information request.”
City council did direct staff to make those high-level reports more readily available on the city’s web site. Links to the reports can be found on the city’s home page princegeorge.ca.
“There is going to be some progress,” Skakun said. “But compared to what the City of Quesnel does, it doesn’t go far enough.”
Frizzell said he is disappointed the finance and audit committee didn’t investigate the cost of processing Freedom of Information requests. Had that been investigated, he said, council may have found a savings by releasing the results rather than having to process multiple requests for the same information.
“The province has seen a significant savings from this,” Frizzell said.
Frizzell said he intends to keep the issue of government transparency alive at city council.
“This is just the start. They’ve opened the door in a way,” Frizzell said. “Keep secret what has to be kept secret, but release everything else.”
Mayor Shari Green said she has confidence in the spending decisions being made by city staff, and the additional reporting would put an additional burden on staff time.
“Ninety hours? That’s over two weeks of somebody’s time to prepare these reports,” Green said. “From my perspective, every expenditure by the city is defensible.”
