Audit of City of Revelstoke’s buying practices finds ‘sound policies and practices’

Long-awaited, much anticipated, and in the end, pretty anticlimactic.

A performance audit of the City of Revelstoke’s buying practices – known as operational procurement – has found that city staff and council members made decisions with due regard for value for money.

The 36-page report, called Achieving Value for Money in Operational Procurement, was released by the Auditor General for Local Government on Friday, May 6. It’s been a few years since AGLG staff were in town to perform the audit starting in May of 2013, when the city was led by mayor David Raven. The period that was audited is even further back, from 2010 to 2012.

But auditor general Gordon Ruth said the recommendations presented in the report are still relevant today.

Overall, the City of Revelstoke met most of the audit’s expectations and the report concludes we had a solid foundation for operational procurement. The review explored how the city goes about buying supplies like vehicles, contract services, and the many supplies it takes to keep the city running.

“I am encouraged to see that the City of Revelstoke has generally sound policies and practices covering its operational procurement,” Ruth said. “And I’m pleased with the city’s constructive response to the audit and its commitment to act on our recommendations.”

In addition to the audit’s generally positive findings, it identified a few areas where Revelstoke could enhance its management of operational procurement. These include filling some gaps in its buying policies and improving monitoring and reporting of these activities.

“I hope our recommendations will help the city strengthen its management of procurement activities,” Ruth said. “By making the changes we have recommended, the city could do an even better job of ensuring value for money in its operational procurement.”

Revelstoke mayor Mark McKee said the reported confirmed what he already felt and that a lot of the changes had already been put into place.

“I think if we were getting an audit done today we would get even higher marks for what we have put into place,” he said.

“It’s always nice to see these things, because all of us, in every part of city hall, should always be striving to do a better job, and make more efficient use of tax dollars, and deliver goods and services as efficient as possible.”

There are two main recommendations in the report.

Recommendation one is, “The City of Revelstoke should enhance its purchasing and conflict of interest polices to align with current good practice. Specific areas for attention include:

-Guidance on use of procurement documents and contracting ;
-Guidance on vendor performance and debriefing unsuccessful bidders;
-Guidance on unsolicited proposals;
-Guidance for vendors to disclose and sign off on potential conflicts of interest; and,
-Provisions to protect employees reporting a known or potential conflict of interest regarding City employees or Council members involved in procurement.”

The second main recommendations reads:

“The City of Revelstoke should enhance its monitoring and reporting on operational procurement activities and results by:

-Developing and implementing key performance indicators relating to operational procurement and a system to monitor them; and,
-Increasing reporting to Council about operational procurement results.”

The AGLG office has been surrounded in controversy since it was created in 2012. When it was created as a provincial government watchdog on local government, many municipalities disliked the idea of being reviewed. The office has also been criticized for its costly and lengthy delays on putting out reports, and former AGLG Basia Ruta was let go last year after very public clashes with the Liberal government. All that controversy, however, had little to do with Revelstoke, other than to delay this report for years.

There are now 21 reports from the AGLG on their website. Some of them raise red flags on certain municipalities, and call for reforms. But many of them, like the new report for Revelstoke, say all is more or less as it should be, and provide a few pointers on how the municipalities can improve.

Read the Auditor General for Local Government’s report on City of Revelstoke operational procurement here:

Revelstoke AGLG Report May 2016 by Revelstoke Mountaineer