Ottawa's Audit Committee Reviews City Finances, Transit Overtime, Garbage Collection and 311 Services

Ottawa's Audit Committee reviewed audits of city finances, OC Transpo overtime, curbside garbage collection and 311 services. The reports identified $70 million in city overtime costs in 2025, inconsistent enforcement of garbage rules, delays in 311 email responses and gaps in monitoring transit work hours. The committee also reviewed the Auditor General's external assessment and advanced several reports and recommendations to Council.

STORM DAMAGE AND CITY FINANCES

KPMG presented its audit plan for the City of Ottawa's consolidated financial statements. The audit will examine the financial effects of the July 1 storm on municipal infrastructure, facilities and O-Train assets.

Rebecca McDonald of KPMG said the review would assess "the identification and quantification of those damages," along with insurance recoveries, asset impairments, write-offs and provisions for restoring damaged assets. Audit fieldwork is scheduled to begin in mid-April, with draft financial statements expected before the committee in June.

KPMG set overall materiality at $150 million for the consolidated statements and $130 million for standalone city operations. The threshold for reporting identified errors is $7.5 million. Separate audits will cover Hydro Ottawa, Ottawa Community Housing and local Business Improvement Areas.

The committee also reviewed changes to development-charge rules under provincial Bill 17 and their potential effects on infrastructure-funding timelines.

OC TRANSPO OVERTIME, STAFFING AND SAFETY

The Auditor General's review found that city overtime costs rose from $61.7 million in 2024 to just over $70 million in 2025. Auditor General Nathalie Gougeon said the increase was linked to "unfilled vacancies or staff shortages and a backlog of work."

The audit found that some OC Transpo operators and mechanics exceeded hours-of-service requirements or worked more than 130 hours during a two-week pay period. Councillor Riley Brockington asked, "When an operator drives 130 hours in a two week period how are they still physically and mentally alert to continue driving?"

The review also found:

• Paper-based overtime tracking in fleet maintenance.
• Overtime entries without documented supervisory authorization.
• Differences between timesheets and payments recorded in SAP.
• Operators signing up for overlapping shifts at multiple garages, resulting in abandoned shifts.
• About 20 to 25 experienced bus operators assigned to quarterly booking-clerk duties, sometimes working fewer than eight hours while receiving full-shift pay and a premium.
• Chronic under-budgeting for overtime between 2021 and 2025.

The audit concluded that reliance on overtime "is not sustainable in the long run" because it can increase costs, contribute to burnout and reduce productivity.

OC Transpo management accepted all 13 recommendations. The agency said a recent intake of 108 operators reduced bus-operator overtime by 2,500 hours in one month. It also reported that 200 of 354 new electric buses had arrived and that in-service vehicle issues had fallen by 48% from the previous winter's peak.

A shortage of 57 licensed mechanics is expected to take about three years to address. The city is working with Algonquin College on an apprenticeship program and plans to reduce double-time incentives as staffing improves.

CURBSIDE GARBAGE COLLECTION AND WASTE ENFORCEMENT

An audit of curbside garbage collection found that collectors followed the city's three-item biweekly limit and related rules in only two of 21 observed test cases. In the other 19 cases, collectors either picked up ineligible or excess material or failed to leave required courtesy tags.

The audit found that 9,483 residential addresses received more than five courtesy tags between Jan. 1, 2025, and May 27, 2026. More than 1,900 addresses were repeatedly tagged for exceeding the three-item limit.

Auditors found that tag records were kept on paper and were not consistently entered into the city database. In one test, only one of three observed tags was recorded. Contractor trucks have cameras that can be reviewed for complaints, but city-operated trucks do not.

The 2025 waste budget produced a surplus of more than 10% because it relied on baseline estimates and inflation adjustments rather than actual operating costs and collection volumes. The audit also found that a cost-and-performance comparison between private and city-run collection will not be available until the second quarter of 2028.

Councillor Catherine Kitts noted that 78% of residents receive collection service from private contractors and 22% from city crews. She asked why the comparison framework would not be established until 2028.

Staff are considering targeted visits to repeat offenders, and the three-item limit is scheduled for formal review in 2027. Councillors also discussed illegal dumping and recycling contamination.

311 SERVICE PERFORMANCE AND MODERNIZATION

The 311 audit found that 60% of sampled emails missed the 48-hour response target, with delays of up to 35 days. The audit also found that three of 49 sampled service requests were closed before work was completed.

Average call-answer time was about five minutes and 35 seconds in June 2026, below the city's internal target of seven minutes and 52 seconds. The city later reported a 37% year-to-date reduction in average answer times.

Councillor Catherine Kitts said, "My dream for 311 is the Domino's pizza model. If you order a pizza at Domino's, you can follow it. It's in the oven. They put the toppings on, you know, it's put in the box. it's ready to go. And so that's people's expectation. And so with 311, when they're not seeing their request move through those steps, they get very frustrated."

The audit also found incomplete or inaccurate information provided to some callers, duplicate service requests and cancellations when requests were routed to the wrong department. Some service standards measured an administrative step, such as an inspection, rather than completion of the requested work.

The city is expanding online forms, developing an app that will allow residents to submit photos, testing a chatbot and preparing an artificial-intelligence call-analysis tool. Staff said phone, email and in-person services will remain available.

Councillor Cathy Curry proposed making human assistance an immediate option for callers, saying, "We have an aging population. Maybe the first response is, 'Would you like to speak to a human?'"

AUDITOR GENERAL'S OFFICE AND OVERSIGHT

The Office of the Auditor General received the rating "fully achieves" across all 52 standards in an independent five-year assessment by the Institute of Internal Auditors.

The office also revised its Audit Charter to clarify its authority and oversight of the city's Fraud and Waste Hotline. The external assessor said Ottawa was only the second Canadian public-sector internal-audit function to receive the rating under standards introduced in 2025.

Motions

• Addition of audit reports under Procedure By-law 2025-100, Section 89(3): Passed.
• Auditor General Semi-Annual Report on Follow-Up Procedures — Item 5.1: Carried and recommended to Council for receipt.
• Auditor General External Quality Assessment — Item 5.2: Carried; the committee recommended approval of the report and revised Audit Charter.
• Auditor General Review of Overtime — Item 5.3: Carried; recommendations were advanced to Council.
• Audit of Curbside Garbage Collection — Item 5.4: Carried as part of the committee's audit business.
• Audit of 311 Operations — Item 5.5: Carried; nine recommendations were advanced to Council.

Attendees

Councillors identified as participating included:

• David Brown
• Riley Brockington
• Theresa Kavanagh
• Catherine Kitts
• Allan Hubley
• David Hill
• Shawn Menard

Also participating or presenting were Auditor General Nathalie Gougeon, KPMG representative Rebecca McDonald and OC Transpo officials.