A top city manager said "someone was fiddling while Rome burned" when it came to a failed contract to recycle Michigan waste that ended up costing taxpayers $2.6 million last year.
Deputy chief administrative officer Scott Stewart made the comment at Tuesday's meeting of the Corporate Services Committee, the first opportunity for councillors to grill staff on what went wrong.
"Last December we were told the negative variance was $500,000. Now we get this report ... and it's $2.6 million. The question is 'why?'" councillor Christine Billings said in getting the ball rolling.
"Where was the oversight?" Mayor Cam Guthrie later asked.
"Do bells and whistles not go off sooner?" asked councillor Andy Van Hellemond, one of six visiting councillors on hand to take in the hot topic.
"Giant red flags jump out to me," added councillor Mike Salisbury.
As late as last December council was told the losses were roughly $500,000. It wasn't until a staff report released a week ago that the full scale of the financial losses were made public.
The Solid Waste Resource Centre also had to lay off 36 employees that made up a second shift added just to handle the Michigan waste.
Stewart said certain assumptions were made when the deal was presented to council for approval in the summer of 2014 and that some possible costs and risks were not accurately included in that information.
"I don't think the full story was there to see it all, in my opinion," said Stewart, who did not work for the city at that time.
Those assumptions included a profit estimate based only on the high value of recyclables at the time and unforeseen costs included having to ship 36 percent of the material to landfill when the Michigan waste ended up being of lower quality than expected.
The city is no longer recycling any waste from Michigan.
"The right language in the right contract would have helped," Stewart told the committee, choosing his words carefully. "It's very hard for me to get into the head of the staff that brought this to you."
He later called the contract, which was never actually signed but honoured anyway, "a head shaker."
The real finger pointing was likely being done behind closed door when the committee went in-camera after the open meeting to discuss legal and personnel issues surrounding the matter.
"There is an explanation, but some of that should be done in-camera," said Stewart.
After that in-camera meeting, Guthrie publicly thanked staff for information that "brought a lot more clarity to the issue."
Earlier Guthrie said he wants city council to support him later this month when he asks for disciplinary action to be taken against those responsible.
That could be difficult.
Two people at the forefront of the decision making process surrounding the contract no longer work for the city: Former Manager of Waste Resources Dean Wyman is now Director of Waste Management for the Edmonton Waste Management Centre and Al Horsman, the deputy CAO that Stewart replaced, is now CAO in Sault Ste. Marie.
The contract lost $2.6 million primarily as a result of the sinking price of recyclables and the fact the waste coming from Michigan was far lower in recyclable quality than was expected.
In addition to the five members of the committee, seven of the city's eight other councillors were in attendance at the meeting. Ward 1 councillor Dan Gibson had a prior commitment.
The issue will hit the spotlight again when it comes before the meeting of full council on April 28.
