Lorrie Goldstein Verified account @sunlorrie The Ontario Liberals truly have no shame: Gov't insists Pan Am Games came in under budget, despite auditor's report
Ontario’s Liberal government still insists last year’s Pan Am Games came in under budget, even though the province’s Auditor-General released a report Wednesday that concludes the event cost an extra $342-million and takes issue with $5.3-million in bonuses paid out to senior staff.
“While the Games unfolded successfully and the legacy of infrastructure remains ... [it came] at significantly higher cost to Ontario taxpayers than originally planned,” Ontario Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk told reporters Wednesday after releasing her audit of the $2.5-billion event.
There has long been controversy over the $5.3-million in bonuses handed out to 53 senior TO2015 staff by the organization’s board, which was chaired by former Liberal premier David Peterson.
In her audit, Ms. Lysyk says some of the bonus amounts were meant to reward managers for staying within their operating budget. However, even though the event needed a $74-million budget boost from the provincial government in 2014, those bonuses were still paid out in full. And the Ontario government chose not to block TO2015 from cutting those cheques, the audit says, although the government asked the board to “take into consideration” the fact that the event had gone over budget.
Also included in those bonuses were payments for overseeing capital projects that were actually “98 per cent” overseen by Infrastructure Ontario or municipalities, the audit says. Half the bonus amounts were simply meant for completing contracts to the end of the games. All were fully paid, with some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
mo
Ontario insists Pan Am Games came in under budget, despite auditor's report - The Globe and Mail
can't lie their way out of this one.
