National Public Works Week
Chief administrative officer Linda Nelson brought to council’s attention a request from the American Public Works Association, Alberta Chapter to recognize and promote National Public Works Week from May 19-25.
During the April 15 council meeting Coun. Rob Wolfe motioned for council to declare a proclamation as such.
Coun. Cheri Funke said when the municipality has in the past supported this proclamation, that the council had hosted a barbecue at the town shop for public works employees, and wondered whether that would still be the case.
Mayor Terry Leslie said this is the 59th year of the proclamation, and added, reading from correspondence submitted by the Alberta chapter, that mobility, growth and innovation, security, healthy communities and citizens’ quality of life all start with public works.
Following up on Funke’s inquiry, the mayor mused about looking into options to perhaps celebrate with a barbecue along with an invitation to residents for tours of the shop as part of an effort to drive home how important public works is.
Coun. Todd Dalke concurred, but said a proclamation in paper does not do much, and so expressed support in making arrangements for some kind of open house event.
“If administration can make up a plan, that would be good,” said Dalke.
“We could certainly do that,” said Nelson.
The motion on the table carried unanimously.
Clean audit
Laura Daniels presented on behalf of Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) an audit report on the municipality’s 2018 financial statements during the April 15 council meeting.
Citing outstanding cooperation from administration and staff throughout the course of the audit, Daniels said procedures to address, for example, fraud risks, including testing journal entries in search of abnormalities, “performed without exception.”
Although some minor issues were identified in other areas, no major red flags were discovered, she said, adding one small item from the previous year was not deemed significant enough to ask the municipality’s management to make any adjustments.
“As the auditor, we have a responsibility to report to council if there was what we considered to be significant deficiencies within the town’s internal controls over financial reporting and accounting,” she said.
“I’m pleased to say that there was nothing that we felt was a significant deficiency.”
Following Daniels’ summary, council unanimously carried a motion to accept as information her presentation. Council then went in-camera to further discuss behind closed doors additional information for about half an hour.
After the meeting was called back to order, council carried unopposed another motion to accept the 2018 auditor’s report and financial statements as well as the financial information return as presented by PwC, and to furthermore direct administration to forward the approved documents to the minister as per the Municipal Government Act.
“This relatively is a clean financial audit for us,” said Mayor Terry Leslie, who also expressed appreciation for the finance department’s effort to update the “financial framework to look at things in a more predictable way for the future.”
Borrowing bylaw
Chris Albert, director of corporate services, briefly outlined the background for first reading of a borrowing bylaw for the budgeted Main Avenue West project’s second phase.
“The debenture borrowing will be in the amount of $1,307,200,” Albert told council during the April 15 meeting, adding construction will begin before the draw date of Sept. 16.
“This is strictly for cash flow purposes,” he said.
As per the Municipal Government Act, the municipality had to following first reading advertise the bylaw, which will be brought back for the next reading once that waiting period has expired, he said.
Council unanimously carried a motion to give first reading to the bylaw authorizing the municipality to incur indebtedness by the issuance of a debenture in the amount of about $1.3 million for the Main Avenue West upgrade.
