{"id":2009,"date":"2013-05-14T16:13:53","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T20:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=2009"},"modified":"2013-05-21T14:24:54","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T18:24:54","slug":"council-retains-tighter-grip-on-purchasing-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-retains-tighter-grip-on-purchasing-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Council retains tighter grip on purchasing power"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Councillors want to keep a closer eye on how public money is spent, following proposed changes to Aurora\u2019s purchasing policies. <\/p>\n

Recommendations set out last Tuesday on revisions to the Town\u2019s guideline proposed bumping up the threshold staff and departments can spend on previously budgeted items without having to come back to Council for further approval.<\/p>\n

As it stands going into this week\u2019s Council meeting, staff must come back with a report to Councillors authorising them to spend anything more than $50,000. Staff recommended increasing this to a $200,000 limit, but Council opted to slash this in half.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn increase in the threshold would reduce the time required to award a contract which would provide a better service level to vendors and proponents,\u201d said Town Clerk John Leach. \u201cIt would also enables the Town to respond more quickly to market conditions and be consistent with the threshold amounts in neighbouring municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Aurora stands at $50,000, Newmarket\u2019s limit is capped at $250,000 with Richmond Hill set at $500,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe process to make an award would continue to be open, transparent, and accountable and consistently followed ensuring the best possible value for the Town\u2019s purchasing dollar,\u201d Mr. Leach continued. \u201cThe newly suggested threshold would apply as long as the recommended award is within the Council-approved current budget for such a project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillors, however, largely disagreed, with some arguing it would diminish what they viewed as a crucial role of the Town\u2019s elected officials, with others agreeing that it would simply be good business practice to set a budget and let staff do their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur role as Council is to maintain the financial integrity of the municipality and to ensure accountability for the operations,\u201d said Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cI feel like I am delegating a little bit of my role and responsibility to staff. Staff do a great job and follow a great process, but I need a bit more of a compelling argument of turning that authority over to staff than [simply] better service levels and responding to better market conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Evelyn Buck went one step further. She said if this recommendation passed, Councillors run the risk of losing sight of what projects are on the table and that extra step of Council approval needs to be maintained.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncillor Thompson says we\u2019re delegating, but I think we\u2019re surrendering,\u201d she said. \u201cI am not looking for more work to do, but I am not interested in surrendering the authority people have given us to keep a close eye on what is being done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Councillor Sandra Humfryes said she shared some of the views expressed by Councillors Buck and Thompson, others such as Councillor Paul Pirri and Mayor Geoffrey Dawe were supportive of the recommendation. Councillor Pirri, for instance, said the role of Council is to set policy and direction moving forward as long as Council has the chance to approve the tenders before they are issued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is fair that it shouldn\u2019t have to come back to Council,\u201d he said of the responses to the tenders and staff\u2019s recommendations on which bidder to pick. \u201cWe can do it in a much more efficient way and still maintain control of what goes on in the municipality.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to recommend that the $200,000 be reduced down to $100,000 with the provision that this number rise on the rate of inflation. The current limit of $50,000 has been on the books for the better part of 15 years, they were told. <\/p>\n

Although the second half of his recommendation was nixed for the moment pending further information coming back from staff, $100,000 was the magic number approved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see this as surrendering authority to staff,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cI see that as delegating authority. In my opinion, the budget is exactly that. We set staff to do things, whether it is buy a truck, salt, or electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Councillor Buck\u2019s perspective, however, that approach was all well and good if one is the operator of a private business, but the municipality is a different matter altogether. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou like that term \u2018delegate\u2019 because you are a private business operator through and through and you are too old to change now,\u201d she said to Mayor Dawe. \u201cIt is hard to get used to how long it takes to get things done in a bureaucracy, but it is an essential part of the bureaucratic process. It is our job, it is why people elected us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Dawe, on the other hand, said this is exactly how it works at the Regional level.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Councillors want to keep a closer eye on how public money is spent, following proposed changes to Aurora\u2019s purchasing policies. Recommendations set out last Tuesday on revisions to the Town\u2019s guideline proposed bumping up the threshold staff and departments can spend on previously budgeted items without having to come back to Council […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-wp","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 16:22:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}