Missing Cheque Registers in Wasaga Beach

Cheque Registers used to be approved during a Council meeting. The cheque register, being part of the agenda, became public the day the agendas became public.

This was not always a comfortable moment for those elected officials that would be criticized almost immediately for some of the spending. But… previous Councils continued with this practice in the interest of open and transparent governance.

These days, there is apparently a different process. Nobody is sure why there is such a delay in making the numbers public, but now the public has to go to a specific page on the towns website and look for the current cheque register. Sadly, the town is either NOT recognizing this as a priority, OR they require some sort of review/ approval before publicizing it.

If the delay is due to a review process, then just get it done. If the review is due to editing what is shared and redacting information, then shame on who controls that process for dragging it out.

Why is the cheque register so important? There have been instances where certain expenditures were “revealed” in the process. Then, the questioning of the expenditure started. If not for the register, the public may never have known our Deputy CAO was paid through a third party company for many months. (Thus, not on the sunshine list) Concert deposits, arena floors and all kinds of expenses have been revealed to the public ONLY through these registers. Even a $600+ lunch for Council was discovered. Routinely, credit card over limit fees are exposed and these things enrage taxpayers.

Are they hoping items from three months ago will be less important to the taxpayer today? I guess it is possible that some may not take note of a particular expense if the hotbed issue has faded from memory. Would the April register for instance still have cheques that may be related to the two concerts at the TPAL?

For those interested in following the reasons our taxes are increasing exponentially, the last cheques we have the ability to review were written on March 29,2024. That’s over 100 days ago…..