Alberta government issues directives for City of Chestermere after financial inspection reveals flaws

The Alberta government confirmed the inspection into the City of Chestermere’s financial issues has finished — in one case finding that out of 565 council expense claims, only one was properly documented.The inspector reviewed more than 10,000 correspondences, conducted more than 1,000 tests of financial transactions, and did 30 interviews. “It was certainly a robust and thorough inspection, and the findings make it clear that during the time period for the last municipal election to the dismissal on December 4th, the city’s finances were managed in an irregular, improper, and improvident manner,” said Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver at a Friday press conference. “The report identifies gaps in processes and financial controls as well as more recent instances where during the period of this review on how the finances were not managed in compliance with the Municipal Government Act.” While the report has many examples of this, McIver highlighted three of them. The first example was the City of Chestermere did not have appropriate policies and tools to log transactions and protect data. While the inspector did not lay blame, people charged with oversight did not take steps to address it. The second example was over the inspector testing 565 Chestermere city council expenses and found one of them was submitted with full documented reviews and approvals. Council incurred costs without passing a resolution or bylaw or including them as expenditures in the city budget. Former Chestermere mayor Jeff Colvin assumed duties assigned to the chief administrative officer, which is prohibited under the Municipal Government Act. In one incident, the inspector said Colvin entered an agreement to sell municipal land without an approved resolution from council and dealt with legal counsel on it. McIver pointed out these were three of 31 examples in the report finding the City of Chestermere’s finances were improperly managed. He encouraged every interested person, especially Chestermere residents, to visit the Alberta government’s website and read the report. While changes were sudden, he said it “is clear from this report that appropriate checks and balances to protect the public were lacking.” He added people deserves these checks and balances in the stewardship of their tax dollars. Based on the findings of the inspection, he said he has issued another ministerial order giving two binding directives to the City of Chestermere. The first directive is council must discuss each recommendation in a public meeting, approve the plan, publish it, and send a copy to his office. The second directive is for the current CAO to post the report on the city’s website and make print copies available until the first directive has been met to his satisfaction. He said it “is my sincere hope that the inspection report will inform a common understanding of the work that needs to be done by the city to implement the necessary changes to policy, procedure, and practices that are needed to establish good stewardship of Chestermere’s finances.” He will be sharing this hope in a letter he will be sending to all Chestermere residents. The City of Chestermere will soon call a byelection to address the vacancies on its city council. This byelection will be run by it without the Alberta government’s involvement. Because of this controversy, McIver said Chestermere experienced an unfortunate chapter. However, he said it is almost time to turn the page. McIver followed up by saying it would be unideal for the City of Chestermere to not comply with the directives. “And I guess we’ll deal with that and should that circumstance crop up, it will depend on the details around that circumstance,” he said. “And while I don’t know what that response will be, I can tell you this — the response will be different as compared to if council is doing their very best to meet the directives and for some reason is just struggling or if they refuse to, that will be a different response.” He could not say what each of those responses would be without the details, but he hopes it will not happen. McIver issued a ministerial order in December dismissing Colvin, three Chestermere city councillors, and the three CAOs. READ MORE: Province fires Chestermere's mayor, council membersThe decision came after the city failed to comply with directives issued by former Alberta municipal affairs minister Rebecca Schulz since 2023 aimed at restoring good governance to it. The affected councillors were Mel Foat, Blaine Funk, and Stephen Hanley.

Alberta government issues directives for City of Chestermere after financial inspection reveals flaws

Related Stories

Strathmore rejects proposed ban on Pride crosswalks

Carney government discussed media blacklist at closed-door meeting, records show

WENZEL: Calgary’s water crisis isn’t your fault — so why are you paying for it?

UCP claim Nenshi has his own history of meddling with electoral boundaries