Top Brampton official open to reviewing contracts process
Chief administrative officer John Corbett tells council he’s open to reviewing how so many non-compliant contracts were approved.

Thestar.com
July 17, 2014
By San Grewal

Brampton’s top bureaucrat said he’s open to reviewing the process that leads to non-compliant contracts after staff found 302 that broke purchasing rules.

Meanwhile, Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell told council Wednesday that a recent news story about the contracts was filled with “factual errors.”

Two weeks ago a Star investigation revealed that since 2007 the city issued 302 “non-compliant” contracts worth $4.6 million that broke the city’s own rules for purchasing and procuring goods and services.

“That work was done according to the rules,” Fennell said at Wednesday’s meeting, often repeating that in certain special circumstances the city’s purchasing bylaw allows staff to enter contracts without following the regular procedures.

But councillors pointed out that those special circumstances are for emergencies.

“Was the $800,000 for the City Hall renovation an emergency?” Councillor John Sprovieri asked staff. “Was that job tendered? If not, why not?”

Sprovieri was referring to the largest job on the list of non-compliant contracts since 2007: an $854,000 contract that was not tendered and was handed to a company to renovate office space in city hall.

Staff said the job was not an emergency and was sole-sourced because it was for a “corporate realignment” that had to be done in a timely manner. So a vendor with a proven track record was chosen, even though other companies could have done the work.

“We don’t know if we could have gotten a better price,” Sprovieri replied. “We will never know.”

Sprovieri, growing increasingly frustrated, said it might have taken as little as one week to call other vendors for quotes.

“Timing and scheduling is not a sufficient reason to go without a tendering process,” a senior staffer responded.

That didn’t stop Fennell from repeating throughout the meeting that “no rules were broken.” She said she will demand a correction in the Star.

The reporting of contracts to council since 2012 (they were not reported to council prior to that) includes a separate list for “emergency contracts” and another for “non-compliant” ones. The Star’s investigation discussed only those on the “non-compliant” list.

Councillor Elaine Moore asked staff why the term “non-compliant” is used if, indeed, rules aren’t broken.

Chief administrative officer John Corbett said the term is a “misnomer” and suggested a new term might have to be used in the future.

Fennell also said it was incorrect that some council members were not aware of the non-compliant contracts. According to her, council must have known about them because they had been reported to council since 2012.

“To say it happens without council’s knowledge is flat out false,” she said.

Councillors told the Star they had been unaware of the contracts because they were reported after the fact, in reports marked as “consent items” on council agendas, meaning staff deemed them routine and uncontroversial.

Fennell did not respond to the Star’s questions when the original story was being written two weeks ago.

Moore asked why the non-compliant contracts are only reported to council after staff has already made the decision to enter into them - and in many cases after the job is done.

She told the Star that council, not staff, should be making that decision on bigger contracts.

“An $855,000 job is big. We are the ones elected to protect the taxpayers, not staff.”

Corbett said he will consider asking staff to review the process.

Earlier in the meeting, council voted to hire a new integrity commissioner, Robert Swayze, who also serves in the same role for Mississauga.

Staff said Swayze’s first order of business will be to determine if an independent forensic audit into Fennell’s spending and that of the rest of council indicates that rules were broken.

The audit comes before council Aug. 6, and staff confirmed it will be posted online for the public before that, as soon as it’s received.