Kitchener Audit Committee Reviews Third Quarter 2026 Audit Status Report

The Kitchener Audit Committee reviewed the Third Quarter 2026 Audit Status Report on Sept. 28, including controls for DocuSign contracts and compliance with the City's Employment of Relatives Policy. The audit identified five policy conflicts involving 347 employees in 157 relationships. The City restricted financial access, required recusal in relevant decisions and created a centralized system to track potential conflicts.

Topics Discussed

CONTRACT SIGNING CONTROLS

The committee reviewed the City's use of DocuSign, which replaced Consigno, for executing municipal agreements. The audit examined about 2,500 documents processed during the previous year.

The auditor recommended closer coordination between Legal and Legislative Services to ensure that employees without delegated signing authority cannot execute agreements. During the discussion, the electronic approval process was described as replacing the physical legal stamp previously placed on documents:

"I got a couple. Um so on the manual documents that we do now, I mean this goes back to Carl's time. Um, legal puts a stamp on the back of this signing page which means that legal reviewed it and the clerk and myself are authorized to sign it. No stamp, no no signature. How does that kind of get managed with with this with an electronic version?"

The City forecast approximately 2,400 DocuSign envelopes for 2027, within its contracted tier limit of 2,600.

EMPLOYMENT OF RELATIVES AUDIT

The committee reviewed compliance with the Employment of Relatives Policy. The audit compared employee records to identify staff members living at the same address and assessed whether their reporting relationships created conflicts.

The review identified 347 employees involved in 157 relationships. The auditor said the figures had remained relatively consistent over time:

"So, what I found was that there were 347 employees that are in 157 relationships. This number has stayed fairly constant over time, ranging from around 250 to 400 employees in 100 to 190 relationships."

FIVE POLICY CONFLICTS IDENTIFIED

The audit found five conflicts involving relatives in municipal employment:

• One employee was promoted to director while a relative worked in the Finance department and could potentially access the director's financial transactions.
• Two cases involved a manager or supervisor and a relative working in the same division, although they were not in direct reporting relationships.
• Two cases involved employees with access to financial transactions connected to relatives.

The audit found that none of the cases involved a family member having direct control over a relative's employment.

CORRECTIVE MEASURES AND HR TRACKING

The City restricted financial permissions so employees could not process or view transactions involving relatives. It also placed letters on personnel files requiring supervisors to recuse themselves from decisions involving family members.

The audit found that Human Resources required job applicants to disclose family connections but did not centrally track the information after hiring. A centralized repository was created to help identify potential conflicts during transfers and promotions.

The status report also included ongoing reviews of Legal Services capacity and workspace reorganization at the municipal yard and annex.

Motions

• Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned on a motion by Councillor Mitchell, seconded by Councillor Johnson. The motion passed.

No other motions were identified in the provided meeting summary.

Attendees

The provided record identifies:

• Councillor Mitchell
• Councillor Johnson

The full attendance list was not provided. The list of councillors associated with the meeting includes Schnider, Stretch, Deneault, Ioannidis, Vrbanovic, Chapman, Owodunni, Johnston, Singh, Michaud and Davey.