Without an adequate governance framework, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) acted as an entity independent of the City, which led the organization to incur expenses and award contracts whose relevance was not been demonstrated, estimates the General Auditor (AG) of the City of Montreal in her annual report.
Following media coverage of excessive spending at the OCPM, the City’s new general auditor, Andrée Cossette, looked into the governance and management framework of the organization created in 2002.
From the outset, it notes that in addition to benefiting from operational independence linked to its mission, the OCPM has granted itself administrative independence from the City, an independence which has never been called into question. by this, she indicates. “The presidency exclusively embodied the governance of the OCPM without a rigorous management framework or an effective and formal external monitoring mechanism. This led in particular to expenses whose necessity and relevance could not be demonstrated,” underlines his report.
The AG notably examined the organization’s expenditures made in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023. (The years 2020 and 2021 were excluded, being considered unrepresentative due to the COVID-19 pandemic.) This period, the AG recorded official expenses totaling $134,000, including $71,356 allocated to travel (for a total of $262,000 for the period from 2014 to 2023). In particular, she scrutinized 411 transactions. Of this number, only 162, or 40%, respected the expenditure scale used by the City of Montreal, while 59% were one to more than four times higher than the established scale.
The VG also focused on expenses for meals taken in restaurants and including, in certain cases, alcohol. “Due to their recurrence, the costs incurred, the weakness of the justification and the confidentiality of the subjects that can be discussed, it is reasonable to question whether holding these discussions in a public place such as a restaurant was wise,” underlines the VG.
Travel
As for travel outside the country, the OCPM did not have a complete portrait of the missions abroad carried out during the period from 2014 to 2023, indicates the VG. The organization still noted 53 trips, an average of nearly 7 trips per year, including 43 made by members of management. “No major irregularities in travel expenses and costs outside the Montreal region were noted during the reference period,” the report indicates. “Although errors or breaches are observed, the consequences are minor, but may nevertheless demonstrate deficiencies in the effectiveness of controls. »
The VG nevertheless noted flaws in the reports of ten missions, some being non-existent or very summary. “Considering the absence of a prior documented analysis justifying the carrying out of a mission and the lack of rigor in the drafting of mission reports, the necessity and added value of missions abroad carried out during the reference period are not demonstrated. »
The rules governing the awarding of contracts were rather free at the OCPM. It was therefore common practice to award contracts over the counter. The VG mentions, without naming it, a resource who was hired as a “process coordinator” and who benefited from 17 separate contracts over the audited period for a total sum of $250,000.
The Auditor General is formulating a series of recommendations to provide the OCPM with a governance framework including “transparent” reporting and an optimized budgetary process.
Remember that in the wake of the revelations about expenses at the OCPM made by Quebecor last fall, the organization was placed under supervision and its president, Isabelle Beaulieu, dismissed. A week earlier, Dominique Ollivier, who had also led the OCPM from 2014 to 2021, had resigned from the presidency of the City’s executive committee.
On Monday, the municipal council also approved the appointment of Philippe Bourke, former president of the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE), as president of the OCPM.
Delay in low-income housing inspections
In its report, the VG was also interested in the management of low-rent housing by the Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal (OMHM). The data reveals that in April 2023, 79% of OMHM buildings were in poor or very poor condition, but that this rate dropped to 61% in November 2023. Since 2022, only 4,768 housing units have been inspected, so that nearly 16,000 should have been if the rules of the Société d’habitation du Québec were respected, specifies the report.
The VG also looked into the universal accessibility of the City of Montreal’s buildings and the management of projects at the Société du parc Jean-Drapeau, in addition to carrying out intrusion tests of the City’s computer systems. in order to verify its safety.