Report says city has hundreds of inactive and ineffective accounts on its books, and its data hasn’t been archived since at least 2006

City council has agreed to spend almost $80,000 fixing and updating the software and data used to balance Prince Albert’s books.

The decision came after a spirited conversation about why the funding was necessary, and why it took until halfway through the year for staff to flag the issue.

The city will partner with Central Square to provide consulting services at a $70,000 cost to restructure, model, map, convert, test and integrate services for the chart of accounts. They will also enter into an agreement to provide database archiving at a cost of $7,900.

The Chart of Accounts lists all accounts used by the city to budget and to track expenses. It serves as the foundation of the financial data and has implications from budgeting and spending to reporting and invoicing. The current system is full of outdated information and hasn’t been archived since 2006, and perhaps ever.

In 2006, the city replaced its existing accounting software with Great Plains, which it still uses today. At that time, there was little to no review of the chart of account’s structure.

New software was purchased in 2015, but due to changes that are needed in the chart of accounts and turnover in the financial department, it was never put to use.

Moving to the new software and making further digital updates at city hall would require fixing a minimum of 791 accounts. Instead, city staff say, a project should be undertaken to fix the

In all, the city has 35,689 chart of accounts, of which 28,964 are active and in use.

Additionally, irrelevant data was transferred into the system back in 2006, and account numbers aren’t grouped properly.

“The current accounts do not meet the need and are hindering the ability to implement budgeting software and other projects,” director of financial services Cheryl Tkachuk said, adding that the project should allow the city to clean up its data, allow forecasting, more detailed budgets and provide better financial information to council and to city managers.

“I believe we could have more effective and meaningful information,” Tkachuk said.

To fix the myriad of issues, city staff are recommending a total overhaul of the general ledger.

That’s what the $70,000 is for, to bring someone in who can set up the new system and train city staff on how to use it.  Those changes, Tkachuk said, will allow for fore efficient line-by-line budget reporting, a review of historical information and reporting, forecasting and the implementation of more digital systems to improve efficiency at city hall.

As Tkachuk told council, since 2006, as accounts changed, infrastructure changed and services changed, the chart of accounts didn’t as it lacked flexibility.

The current software is also limited in how reports can be generated. That means that most city departments need to involve IT for basic information. That slows down the financial reporting process and prevents most managers from accessing even basic information.

She used the water treatment plant as an example of some of the problems with the current system. The plant has one budget line for chemicals. Lacking flexibility, the plant manager is tasked with tracking which chemicals he uses and how much and budgeting for those essential supplies on his own. The city’s accounting software can’t help him.

The proposed project will allow for more reports to be generated by managers themselves, not only allowing them to get a better sense of where their accounts sit, but also freeing up manpower in the IT department, as staff won’t be tasked with generating reports for other departments.

The remaining, $7,900 will allow the existing software data to be archived, which hasn’t been done since 2006 at least. Tkachuk estimated that the last archive would have been before Y2K, though she’s doubtful it even happened then.

The data to be archived goes back to 1998, she said, and the sheer amount of data is causing problems. A recent attempt to merge data for just one customer took over two hours due to the huge volume of data.

While councillors saw the benefit of reorganizing the city’s chart of accounts and archiving the data, they were displeased that the request came six months after budget deliberations were done.

They were also displeased to learn that the new software, purchased in 2015 for about $100,000, hadn’t been used yet.

Tkachuk explained that as they reviewed some of the issues and started the work, they began to find more and more deficiencies. What they thought would only take adjusting about 200 accounts soon turned into a monumental task.

She estimated that in addition to the $70,000 for the consultant, city staff will be heavily involved in the project, putting in about 1.5 times the hours.

“As we go more and more into our system, we’re finding more and more things that need to be cleaned up, Tkachuk said.

“(The consultant) will be providing assistance with showing us how to do it ourselves. They will do modelling for us and we will carry on from there.”

Despite their apprehension, council voted to support the project.

“If we need it, I guess we need it,” said Ward 4 Coun. Don Cody.

“From time to time we have to bit the bullet. If this makes a difference to our budgeting process, I’m happy to proceed with it.”

The motion to approve the purchase passed 7-2, with only Couns. Ted Zurakowski and Tony Head voting against.

City policy and national standards discourage use of traffic calming on busier roads, such as collectors and arterials, which are designated for moving high-volumes of traffic through the city

City councillors have asked city staff to amend a policy so that traffic calming measures can be considered on collector routes near parks and schools.

Council had previously asked administration for an amendment to the city’s traffic calming policy, as any attempts to install calming measures on some collector routes were shut down after administration advised that it would be against both city policy and national traffic standards. After a lengthy debate during Monday’s executive committee meeting, a majority of councillors voted to reword the policy so traffic calming can be considered near parks and schools, no matter how busy traffic in the area may be.

The discussion came out of a previous committee ask to consider traffic calming on Sixth Avenue West near St. Anne School.

Director of public works Wes Hicks said traffic counting and speed monitoring on the street over a two-year period didn’t find any significant pattern of speeding. Still, councillors said, neighbours are concerned at the higher rate of traffic in the area and have requested that council take action.

The road, Hicks said, is also used as a city bus route and for ambulance, fire and police. It has two half signals for pedestrian crossings and two crosswalks.

“It’s our position that we would not need to do any traffic calming on Sixth Avenue West,” Hicks said.

“We were still asked to bring forward this report to make it possible to add traffic calming to that street.”

According to Hicks, all the cities surveyed use Transportation Association of Canada guidelines to determine when traffic calming is needed, and what forms can be used where.

Designated collectors collect traffic from surrounding neighbourhoods and provide traffic movement to arterials. Traffic movement is the primary consideration of designated collectors.

Designated collectors in Prince Albert include Sixth Ave. West, Central Ave. 22nd Street and 10th Ave. East. They are one step down from arterials, used to move traffic through the city. Arterials include Second Ave. West, Sixth Ave. East and 10th/9th Abe West, 15th Street, River Street and Marquis Road.

Under the current policy, traffic calming devices can only be requested where there is adequate traffic, speeds that are, at a minimum 10 km/h over the limit, have pedestrian use, and support from the neighbourhood for the calming device. Traffic calming devices include objects such as speed humps, raised crosswalks, rumble strips, curb extensions, traffic circles, raised medians, forced turn islands and on-street parking. The purpose of traffic calming, city staff wrote, is to restore streets to their intended function.

The policy is being amended, Hicks said, because “it would be difficult for us as administration to endorse putting some of those (traffic calming) devices on arterials and collectors and going against the Transportation Accommodation Standards of Canada.”

Ward 5 Coun. Dennis Ogrodnick said that while those standards are important, so is common sense.

“Tons of kids are crossing this area,” Ogrodnick said. ‘We need this. We need to start using some common sense. We need to slow traffic down. So that kids are safe. Kids are unpredictable whether they’re going to run out or not.”

Ogrodnick said that as the city spends thousands on upgrading parks and playgrounds, it needs to consider slowing down traffic in those areas, regardless of what roads they’re located by.

‘We could have a policy, but we need to break it a lot of times where we need to slow traffic down in this city.”

Ward 6 Coun. Blake Edwards said the clause allowing council to make exceptions is needed because “any discussion that came forward about traffic calming measures was shut down. The common sense factor went out the door,” he said.

“I understand why the public is frustrated with speed. There are more cars on the road every day. More traffic brings to light the speeding that occurs.”

Hicks, and the report, noted that making routes more difficult to traverse for emergency and public transportation vehicles isn’t the only concern. Traffic calming can lead to some drivers avoiding the area altogether. They could head down side streets instead, disrupting residential areas not intended to act as primary routes.

“If you put traffic calming on, people will take a different route,” Hicks said. “If it means cutting through a neighbourhood, they will.”

Creating the exemption option, Though, doesn’t mean that traffic calming will start popping up on collectors, said Ward 8 Coun. Ted Zurakowski.

‘There’s still a process,” he said. “There are lots of exits along that process.”

The proposed change passed unanimously. The proposed change, which would allow councillors to vote to accept the amendment allowing city council to approve traffic calming on collectors near parks and schools, will be forwarded to a future council meeting for approval.

Residential streets come with built-in traffic calming

Most residential routes through the city come with their own traffic calming measure — on-street parking. Street parking makes a road seem more narrow, he said, leading most drivers to slow down as they pass through the area. It’s the same concept used by curb extensions, also known as neckdowns, which tighten up at intersections. The narrower road causes most drivers to be careful.

Even though some residents dislike having parking out front of their house, Hicks said, that on-street parking can be a major factor in slowing people down.

An example he cited was Central Ave. downtown. On-street parking and neckdowns are present in the area, which sees most drivers travelling well below the 40 km/hr speed limit.