The City of Penticton has had to pull back another important financial document after finding errors in the included data.
Under B.C. regulations, every community must produce an annual statement of financial information (SOFI) by the end of June.
It’s an important document for the public to keep track of city spending, listing salaries and expenses for council members as well as all staff earning more than $75,000 per year.
It also lists all suppliers who billed the city for more than $25,000 in the previous year.
However, Penticton’s 2013 SOFI, which was released on June 23, was found to contain some errors, including expenses for senior staff members.
“It was brought to my attention there were two numbers in error, which have been corrected,” said chief financial officer Colin Fisher.
“Following that, we did a more rigorous analysis of the data that was being extracted to generate the report and it was determined there were two other numbers that were in error on the report.
Those have also subsequently been corrected on this report.”
According to Fisher, 2013 was an extraordinary year for the city’s financial department as they converted to a new information system. Compiling the SOFI report combining detail from two systems presented additional challenges over prior years resulting in the errors revealed in a later audit.
Two of those errors included expenses for Annette Antoniuk, the city’s chief administrative officer, and human resources officer Gillian Kenny.
Kenny’s expenses dropped to $4,321 from $7,178 after $2,857 for moving expenses mistakenly added to her account was removed.
Antoniak, on the other hand, showed $8,917 in expenses on the original report, which rose to $12,156 on the amended report.
Antoniak’s expenses include $842 for her membership in the Local Government Management Association, $382 for the Southern Interior Local Government Association, $2,195 for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Association conference and $2,903 for the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference, both of which were held in Vancouver last year.
Antoniak also shows $2,857 for moving expenses, after selling her home in Osoyoos last year as well as $2,921 for a trip to the Challenge race in Roth, Germany last year to promote the Challenge Penticton race.
Expenses listed for city council remain unchanged in the new report, totalling $32,729.