According to British Columbia’s Local Government Act (the legislation that defines the existence and operations of our municipal governments) “a local government’s Statement of Financial Information must be prepared in accordance with the Financial Information Act. The SOFI must be made available for public viewing by June 30 each year and be accessible for the following three years.”
And while some municipalities don’t like to make a public spectacle of the document (probably because it lists the salaries of all municipal employees earning over $75,000), this year Langford has gone one step further and not yet bothered to file one.
As for the reason that Langford failed to meet its reporting deadline, a provincial ministry of community and rural development spokesperson tells Monday,
“The Ministry has been in contact with the City of Langford and City staff are working with their auditors to ensure the financial information is available as soon as possible. Changes to public sector accounting rules that took effect for 2009 required local governments to count, value and amortize their capital assets for the first time. This has, in some cases, caused delays in the publication of financial information.”
Yep, tough to know what a half-built highway interchange is worth.
There were reports of irregularities in the new five-year plan last spring.
Source: Langford's Fudge-it Budget
Inside Langford reports: "The five year plan is interesting as it seems to have budgeted the assumption of receiving several grants, an apparently unusual accounting technique (the more common technique appears to be to adjust your five-year plan after receiving a grant, than budgeting as if you were going to receive it when you don’t know whether you will or not)."
According to another post on Inside Langford, the plan calls for draining the city's capital reserves by the end of 2010:
Over the past years, Langford has built up capital reserves totaling over $7.5 million. With ambitious capital expenditure programs such as Recreation 2010, the crossing of the E&N at Peatt Road and proposed storm water management works mainly in south Langford these reserves will be drawn down to essentially zero by the end of 2010 . . .
Let's hope they get this all sorted out. Nobody wants a forensic audit, right?