Below is a quick FAQ to answer any lingering questions you might have.

Does the City of Mississauga have an Independent Auditor General?

No, it does not have an Independent Auditor General

Wait, are you telling me the City of Mississauga has no auditors?

The City does have internal auditors and Statutory auditors. What it does not have is an independent Auditor General whose full-time job is to find waste and savings.

If we already have statutory auditors and internal auditors, why do we need an Auditor General? 

They do very different things, and there is no duplication.  Statutory auditors are external auditors. Internal audit supports management by strengthening controls and advising on risk. An AG supports Council by looking for waste and fraud and providing independent assurance and public reporting. The two functions complement each other rather than overlap. 

An AG is often called a watchdog.  To take that analogy further, internal audit is like the farm dog, while the AG is the K9 unit.  Both functions are important. 

Is there a real-world example of how AGs find waste?

Here is my favourite one. Toronto’s AG conducted an audit of park staff and found that some park staff claimed to be working at a park per their logs, but their vehicle GPS showed they were at shopping plazas and other non-park sites.  It is this kind of value-for-money audit that the AG shines at. Statutory auditors and internal auditors simply do not conduct these types of value-for-money audits. You can read a summary of this report and how they were able to determine that some park staff were not working but were billing the taxpayer. 

What makes the Auditor General independent, and why is this important?

The secret sauce to the AG is their independence.  

• The AG cannot be hired or fired by the CAO or the Senior Leadership Team.  The AG is hired by the City Council for a set term of 5 to 7 years and during that time cannot be fired by the City Council except with a super majority.  This frees up the AG to conduct their audits without fear or favour.

• At the end of 7 years, the AG’s contract cannot be renewed, so there is no incentive for the AG to be in management’s or the City Council’s good books.

• The AG picks which departments they want to audit, and the senior management of the council cannot stop them.

This triple protection is the gold standard for the independence of an AG and ensures that the AG is working for the taxpayer.

By contrast, internal auditors report to senior management.

Is it common for municipalities to have an AG?

Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Vancouver and Montreal have one.