It’s up to council to initiate the hiring of an internal auditor in 2016.
At Monday’s council meeting, Coun. Sheena Hughes inquired with staff about the status of finding an internal auditor. Council passed a motion to fund a business case to hire an internal auditor during the 2016 budget process.
She and the rest of council heard that council is expected to take the lead on the project.
“It’s not an administrative project, it’s a council project. So we are able to assist council if asked to do so, but given that this is a council motion for a council-led initiative, we’re not taking any action steps at this time,” said city manager Patrick Draper.
Draper said staff have to be careful when dealing with hiring an internal auditor.
“We can’t be seen to be anywhere near engaged in the process,” he said.
“If (council) are ready with documents that could go into an RFP (request for proposal), administratively we’ll prepare the RFP and we’ll post it, but any of the applications would go to council to be reviewed,” said the city manager.
Before that, council should develop a terms of reference, including an idea of the types of projects the internal auditor would work on. Applications would go to council who would get to make the decision on which proposal to accept.
Hughes requested some templates or examples of a terms of reference and RFP documents so council can start considering the issue.
“Since we don’t meet as a council to casually discuss things, I’m not sure how we get this moving forward,” she said.
The internal auditor has been a position long discussed during this council term before finally going to a vote during the 2016 budget talks. Coun. Cam MacKay, who has championed the idea throughout his term, had even suggested a question about the concept be included on the 2016 June byelection ballots.
The business case was originally set at $125,000 but received a bump up to $200,000.
The scope of the internal auditor was not determined as part of the budget process.
