The provincial government is reviewing a proposal to regulate professional municipal administrators, after a handful of incidents in which top bureaucrats were investigated for fraud.
Manitoba Municipal Administrators, which represents about 370 civil servants across the province, has developed a framework for what would be a formal licensure body.
Under Manitoba’s current laws, municipal administrators — including those hired as chief administrative officers and tasked with managing budgets, human resources and overseeing day-to-day operations — are not required to have any official qualifications.
Other high-level professionals, such as city planners, lawyers and physicians are represented and regulated by legislated bodies.
“It’s a very large job with a lot of varied requirements and it’s hard for a council to know sometimes who or what they are looking for in terms of qualifications,” said Nicole Chychota, Municipal Administrators president.
“We are not setting them up to succeed and when we are not setting them up to succeed, we are not setting the community up to succeed.”
Chychota met with Mona Pandey, the deputy minister for municipal and northern affairs, last month to present a 120-page proposal to overhaul Manitoba’s municipal administrative landscape.
It included a recommendation to give Chychota’s organization the authority to issue and enforce professional designations. She proposed a two-tier system to provide education and certification for both chief administrative officers and people working in lower administrative roles such as finance managers, municipal clerks and assistant CAOs.
If the framework was adopted, people hired into such positions would be required to hold one of those certifications.
The plan is influenced, in part, by a similar system in Saskatchewan, which is the only Canadian province to require its municipal administrators to be certified.
Minister of Municipal and Northern Relations Glen Simard said his department is considering Chychota’s proposal.
“We’re reviewing it closely and we’re very interested in what’s in there,” Simard said in an interview Wednesday.
“Having good, solid city managing leadership — outside of the elected officials — provides that consistency and that stability that communities need to move into the future.”
Michael Brunen, a long-standing councillor and deputy reeve in the RM of Lakeshore, said professional oversight is “long overdue” for municipal administrators.
His municipality, which encompasses several hamlets in the Parkland region, near Dauphin, is resettling after upheaval within its governing council.
Lakeshore’s former reeve and two councillors stepped down around September. Those positions were filled in a byelection this month.
The former CAO and his assistant were then placed on leave in October, after Brunen became acting reeve and uncovered deficiencies with spending and financial accounting, Brunen said.
The deficiencies are the subject of an ongoing police probe, launched after concerns were brought to local RCMP, he said.
Brunen could not disclose details of the financial issues (fearing it might compromise the investigation) but said he hopes they soon come to light.
“I want everybody to know how this happened, why it happened, how we’re fixing it and where to move forward. Nothing should be a secret,” Brunen said.
The deputy reeve supports the province introducing a licensure body, but warned it must consider the financial circumstances of smaller municipalities.
He suggested developing pay scale guidelines or provincial tax incentives for remote municipalities to help them find suitable candidates within limited budgets.
Along with enforcing certification, a regulator could help vet prospective administrators to ensure they do not have a legal history — involving either criminal or civil matters — that would be cause for concern, Chychota said.
Her organization already has a professional code of conduct for its members with a formal complaint and enforcement process.
Former RM of North Cypress-Langford CAO Trisha Dawn Fraser is the only member to have been expelled since the policy was enacted in 2023.
She pleaded guilty in May to misappropriating municipal funds to replace $30,000 she’d stolen from the Carberry Curling Club while serving as its treasurer.
Last week, RCMP announced charges against former Gilbert Plains CAO Amber Fisher, who is accused of stealing more than $500,000. Those charges have not been tested in court.
“We keep, unfortunately, seeing situations like in Gilbert Plains, like in North Cypress-Langford, and we need to do something.
“Now is time to act,” Chychota said.
Chychota has requested a follow-up meeting with Simard’s office once it has completed its review of her proposal.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle
Reporter
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press‘s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.