Audit ordered in Bridgetown financial crisis
Posted Jun 3, 2011 04:55:19 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
New information is coming to light surrounding the financial crisis in Bridgetown. Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations Minister John MacDonell has learned a lot of residents who were showing as ‘unpaid’ for municipal taxes and water bills in Bridgetown actually have proof they paid the amounts in full.
Minister MacDonell has ordered a forensic audit of the town. He’s expecting to find a lot of other errors in the books that could add up to a lot of missing money.
“I think that it’s obviously significant enough that it would make the council want to resign,” he says. “It’s enough. Enough for all of us to be concerned.”
Earlier this week, the entire town council quit because of money woes, stating that residents of the town owe up to $130,000 to the town in unpaid taxes and water bills. Two weeks before that, a Bridgetown municipal clerk was fired under allegation of theft.
“I don’t know much about her departure. I actually wasn’t even sure it was a her,” MacDonell says. “That’s an area we really haven’t delved. We think the RCMP are looking into that.”
The forensic audit is expected to take up to three months.
