2024-01-11 22:26:45
Bills from restaurants with alcohol, conventions at Disneyworld, gym memberships: the general manager of the Town of Hampstead has billed taxpayers for hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable expenses over the last few years.
Read also : All-you-can-eat buffet with Montrealers’ taxes at the Montreal Public Consultation Office
This is what the Quebec Municipal Commission (CMQ) reveals in an investigation report made public Thursday and which is reminiscent of other cases of abusive spending of public funds, such as at the Public Consultation Office from Montreal.
“Expenses made by credit cards and the conditions and advantages granted to executives, including those that the general director granted himself, are all expenses incurred in contravention of the law […] and which had not been authorized by the council,” writes the CMQ this time in its report.
General manager Richard Sun, who is still in office, regularly uses two city credit cards to make all kinds of purchases, notably at restaurants, caterers, the SAQ and with airlines and hotels.
Richard Sun, general manager of the Town of Hampstead Facebook
“The expenses thus incurred by the director general are significant. They total more than $150,000 in 2022,” we specify.
From 2018 to 2023, restaurant spending reached up to $8,000 and $14,000 in some years.
The general director explained during the investigation that meetings are held in restaurants since there is “no appropriate space” at the city hall of this wealthy municipality on the island of Montreal. And when alcohol was involved at these gatherings, the cost was billed to taxpayers.
Hampstead town hall, on Queen Mary Road Chantal Poirier / JdeM
A convention at Disney
For the same period, annual expenses ranging from $30,000 to $60,000, paid by credit cards, allowed Mr. Sun and certain executives to participate in conferences and training outside Quebec . There is talk of a social media conference at Disney in Florida, two trips to Barcelona, one to Chicago and one to Las Vegas.
“In the absence of obtaining all the invoices and information concerning these conferences and training courses, their relevance and the reasonableness of the related expenses could not be verified during the investigation,” indicates the Commission.
Other expenses were not authorized at all by a council resolution, including a gym membership for the city’s highest official.
Subscriptions for executives to a private medical clinic – at a cost of $10,230 last year – had not been authorized by the council for more than ten years.
Also, notes the Commission, working conditions and social benefits were not duly authorized by the municipal council. The investigation cites as an example a resolution adopted in 2022 to grant a contract for the rental of a vehicle for $2,289 per month.
“The resolution does not specify that this is the exclusive official vehicle of the DG,” laments the report.
A serious case
Several shortcomings are raised in the control and monitoring of expenditures. “When an expense is not justified by an invoice, the controller asks the DG if he acknowledges having made this expense, without more. He does not ensure, either, that the expenses made by the DG by credit cards were made for municipal purposes,” the report reveals, among other things.
Thus, the investigation concludes that reprehensible acts were committed against the Town of Hampstead, “i.e. contraventions of the law, abuse of public funds and a serious case of mismanagement.”
The CMQ does not ask the DG or any executive to reimburse any expenses. However, it makes recommendations to the City, in particular to put in place a framework for the use, by employees, of City credit cards that complies with the Cities and Towns Act.
The report must be presented to the next municipal council.
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