Vaughan's OT zone: policy needed, says audit report

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 10, 2016
By Tim Kelly

The city’s finance, administration and audit committee was told Vaughan, “does not have any corporate-wide policies or procedures with respect to overtime,” in an audit report last week.

City employees racked up nearly $3 million in OT in 2014.

Vaughan’s own internal auditors concluded organization-wide improvements are needed to better manage overtime and tools and controls are not in place to assist management with determining whether overtime expenditures are reasonable.

Auditor Kevin Shapiro, who wrote the report, said improvements are needed.

Vaughan needs to develop, “a better understanding of the drivers of overtime so efficiencies can be recorded,” he said.

Demetre Rigakos, director of human resources for the City of Vaughan, said “Vaughan’s overtime is comparable to other municipalities of similar size with similar operations.”

Indeed, Windsor, with a population of 205,000 in 2011 - Vaughan’s was 289,000 at the time - had an overtime bill of nearly $4 million in 2014, topping Vaughan’s by over a million dollars.

Still, Rigakos made it clear Vaughan can and should do better when it comes to tracking overtime and presented the committee with an improvement plan.

He said management needs to “clarify (staff) roles and responsibilities, identify when overtime should be use and when authorized; the objective will be to create consistency across the organization.”

Rigakos also said management would need to develop a better understanding of what drives overtime costs and manage the impact of overtime on employee wellness.