When no one else would, Springwater Coun. Matt Garwood stepped up and defended the integrity of township staff at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
As council debated the pros and cons of a notice of motion requesting an audit/review of any contract awards exceeding $75,001 over the past 18 months, put forth by Deputy Mayor George Cabral, Garwood addressed the uneasy feeling in the room.
“I believe there is a potential undertone of distrust and I don’t see it that way,” Garwood said of the motion. “I believe our staff are doing their job responsibly.
“I believe this council does their job responsibly and I don’t see any concern,” he added.
Cabral said council’s role is to provide oversight and to ensure accountability and transparency not only appear to be undertaken but actually are.
“This is nothing more than a snapshot of one of our policies, one of our procedures,” Cabral said after introducing the motion. “In particular the procurement bylaw, which ultimately we’re spending millions of taxpayer dollars every year — to look at it, to make sure we don’t have any gaps, we don’t have any issues with it.
“If we do, then we need to look into it a little bit further and find out why they’re happening,” he added.
Cabral said a review would ensure “staff are adhering to the rules and the policies” and would afford council the opportunity to make sure there are no irregularities.
“Blind faith is not something I have,” Cabral said. “Some folks had blind faith in the Titanic — it was unsinkable. We know how that turned out.”
Garwood countered that it isn’t blind faith that directs his actions but rather trust — trust in the people the township has hired to protect its interests.
“There’s a difference between blind faith and trust,” Garwood said. “Trust is a foundation. We have a professional working relationship with municipal staff, our senior staff and vice versa.
“This is a four-year commitment that we have to work in collaboration, just as we are responsible to the community, staff are also responsible to the community," he added. “I’ve never seen or witnessed anything that wasn’t transparent."
Cabral’s motion was passed by a 4-3 vote, with Cabral and Councillors Phil Fisher, Anita Moore and Danielle Alexander casting votes in favour of the motion.
The township’s director of finance will now do an audit/review of contract awards exceeding $75,001 that occurred during the previous 18 months.
The report will identify each contract award by project number and include sufficient detail and timeline on each, as well as the approvals it received as it progressed through staff and council.
Additionally, the report will detail the tendering process, bidding process, the bidders, and to whom the contract was ultimately awarded.
It will be delivered to council in early December.
Cabral had originally asked for the report to be presented to council at the Nov. 6 meeting, but agreed to delay its delivery so the township’s finance and accounting team could remain focused on preparing the 2025 budget documents.
Coun. Brad Thompson didn’t support the motion because he said the township already has a procurement policy in place that he said directly deals with the concerns Cabral noted.
“For the last 18 months, every one of these bids or (request for quotes/request for proposals) you’re referring to have been embedded in our council meetings,” Thompson said.
“We approved one tonight without any discussion,” added Thompson, referring to a ‘request for quote’ to replace the Elmvale Community Arena door, worth more than $100,000, that council passed moments earlier.
The township’s procurement policy directs that if the contract value is below $5,000, department heads may delegate authority to department employees to purchase the goods and services.. Only one quote is required.
If the contract value is between $5,001 and $15,000, department heads are required to obtain a minimum of three informal quotes.
If the value of the goods and services is between $15,001 and $75,000, an invitational competition will be used.
A public competition will be used when the value of the goods and services is $75,001 or above.
