By Kevin J. Sabo
For the Advance
The County of Paintearth council has officially appointed Michael Simpson as County Chief Administration Officer during a light meeting of council on Nov. 5th.
During a recent Municipal Accountability Program review, it was discovered that though council made the motion to extend the job offer to Simpson, no further follow-up had been done, and Simpson had never been officially appointed into the position.
The oversight was caught in the review conducted by the Municipality Accountability Program, a mandatory program through Alberta Municipal Affairs.
Simpson was officially appointed to the position as per his contract in a motion made by Coun. Tyrill Hewitt.
The Municipality Accountability Program review is conducted on all municipalities under a population of 5,000 on a four-year cycle.
The Town of Castor went through the review earlier this year as well. Once a municipality that has undergone a review receives the report from Municipal Affairs, the municipality administration has eight weeks to reply to the report, and then has a year to correct the deficiencies.
A previous article, from a Town of Castor meeting earlier this year, incorrectly stated that the Town only had eight months to correct the deficiencies.
Paintearth County’s review report will be presented to the public during their Nov. 20th meeting of council.
Other highlights of the Nov. 5th council meeting;
• Administration continues to review and either update or rescind County policies. In total, around 30 policies were reviewed, including the Back-sloping policy, Construction of Approaches by Non-County Forces, Equipment Hauling, and many others.
• Council has been informed that MSI Capital will be maintained in 2019, before being decreased by nine per cent over the next two years, for a decrease of $88,000.
Council also received notification that the provincial government will maintain current levels of FCSS and police funding.
• The Grants in Place of Taxes program will be reduced by 25 per cent in 2019-2020, and a further 25 per cent in 2020-2021.