The questions have begun for the City of Lloydminster.
In late February, Lloydminster city council voted to bring in consultant George Cuff, to conduct a governance audit of the Border City. While the municipal administration had raised the idea of a “Core Review” instead of the audit, council decided to bring in Cuff for a sole-source contract, at a cost of around $70,000.
Neither members of council or senior members of the City’s administration have indicated any particular areas of interest for Cuff to focus on.
“I think there is certainly a question of where does everybody fit into this process,” said Lloydminster mayor Gerald Aalbers, in previous days.
“New management at the top end in the form of city council, we’re trying to make sure that we do it right. We can look to administration, and they’ve done a very good job of leading us through the processes at the beginning of what is the expectations of city council, they’re pretty cut and dry. But by the same token, by bringing someone with the expertise that George Cuff has, it will give us a little different flavour to this whole process.”
Cuff has now arrived in Lloydminster, and will be conducting work on the audit throughout the week. Speaking on Monday, Aalbers said Cuff had been requesting documents and information from council and senior administration in advance of his arrival. The mayor also did not have an exact timeline on when the audit process would wrap up.
“We want to make sure he has ample time to do what he needs to do, and it’s a matter of scheduling,” said Aalbers.
“As you can appreciate, council, senior leadership team, members of the city administration, need to schedule their times to work with Mr.Cuff. So, we’ll be working through that in the next week.”
Aalbers also said Cuff had asked council members to “look inside”.
“He’ll be doing the same with administration, and keep understanding the process and procedures that are there, so he can make his validation and determine his recommendations from that information gathered,” said Aalbers.
A report will be delivered to council after the conclusion of the audit.