Brampton councillors shocked by list of contractors that broke rules
$4.6 million worth of jobs handed out don’t comply with city’s own bylaws

Thestar.com
July 3, 2014
By San Grewal

The City of Brampton has broken its own rules for purchasing and procuring goods or services 302 times since 2007.

In total, $4,627,027 worth of contracts violated the city’s own bylaws going back seven years, according to city documents. In one case, an $854,000 job in 2013 to renovate offices inside city hall was handed to a company without any competitive bidding.

“That’s a sole-source contract,” said Councillor Elaine Moore, one of the council members shocked by the list of “non-compliant” contracts they recently received from staff after the Star requested the information.

In March 2012, a new purchasing bylaw came into effect that requires any contracts that violate any rules be reported to council. Prior to that, council was unaware of non-compliant contracts. But councillors say the new reporting is still too lax and is only done after the rules have already been broken.

“We’re finding out after staff have decided not to follow the rules,” Moore said. “At the very least, we should be able to find out why the rules are being broken before the decision is made.”

Since 2012, the list of non-compliant contracts has been at the back of a quarterly report on contracts in general. The report has been marked as a “consent item” on council agendas, meaning staff deem the issue non-controversial and therefore debate is not necessary.

A spokesperson for the city explained that, in the case of the untendered $854,000 contract for the city hall work, “the company was selected for the renovations because it had successfully demonstrated, through past performance and previously tendered work, that it deliver (sic) projects on time and on budget.”

That response doesn’t make sense to Councillor John Sprovieri.

“So we can just hand contracts blindly to anyone who’s done work for us in the past without getting the required quotes to make sure taxpayers are getting the best value?”

Sprovieri said other businesses also aren’t being treated fairly by getting shut out of the required process.

The information about the non-compliant contracts was provided by the city.

A spokesperson for the city stated: “The frequency of non-compliant purchases has significantly declined from an average of 51 per year prior to 2012 to 15 per year following the implementation of the new bylaw (that requires such contracts be reported to council.)”

The $854,000 contract was on an agenda report.

“What we’re being told is that when no one was looking the rules were being broken,” Sprovieri said. “But even now that they’re supposed to report to council the rules are still being broken. It’s like my kid, when he was a teenager and would try to get things by me if he thought I wasn’t looking.”

The investigation of non-compliant rules was sparked by an earlier discovery that 453 contracts worth $1.1 million from the city since 2001 had been given to a business owned by a close personal friend of Mayor Susan Fennell who lives in a home she owns.

The event planning company, Meri-Mac, received about a half-dozen non-compliant contracts since 2007, according to the recently obtained list. In one case, Fennell’s chief of staff hired her friend without getting the required approval from the finance department. Council last month called for the city’s internal auditor to review the contracts awarded to Meri-Mac.

Fennell did not respond when asked about the latest revelation that 302 contracts since 2007 have violated the rules.

Moore said her examination of the list since receiving it last week shows some disturbing trends. “There are certain companies that received a lot of the non-compliant contracts.”

Sprovieri said if rules are still being disregarded, “how do we know that favouritism toward family or friends isn’t taking place?”

“This really does beg the question of why the finance department was not tracking and reporting trends or concerns to council prior to 2012,” Moore said. It’s unclear why council was never informed of hundreds of contracts that broke the rules.

“And why are we only now being told that the rules have been broken after the fact?”