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In a letter dated November 8, sent to the 32 members of county council, and obtained by Free Press Online, Shane Ross tells them he is their former Property Manager, hired December 2, 2002.

"On October 16th, 2003, I requested and was granted a private audience with the County Auditor, Ms. Kathy Black of BDO Dunwoody. I met with Kathy at the BDO offices in Alliston to disclose to her what I considered to be alarming financial and procedural irregularities on the part of (...) County Administrators," wrote Mr. Ross. "Curiously, despite receiving a sterling six month review, I was terminated from my employ with the County, less than four weeks after reporting my concerns to the County Auditor (and almost immediately following the municipal elections). No reason was offered for my dismissal and I do not know if the Auditors made any effort to act on my submission."

Ms. Black and Doug Holmes of BDO are not commenting.

The Barrie resident said his decision to come forward was made in light of the resignation of the audit firm two weeks ago.

"During my tenure at the County I was privy to - and in fact documented - a number of concerning events including, but by no means limited to, the following:

A Vendor of Record repeatedly complaining that (...) County Administrators were (requesting) them into altering invoices for renovations performed to the Executive Offices.

An (...) administrator openly instructing Finance clerks not to cooperate nor disclose fully to the County Auditors during the official audit process.

An administrator purchasing an $800 tea cart for the Executive Offices and providing only a hand-written receipt for same.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on new office furniture for the County Administration Building - including the Executive Offices - without going to open tender, nor performing any formal prequalification of bidders.

It's important to note that none of these allegations have been proven, and no names were attached to the charges.

But Dawn Hipwell, the County's Corporate Manager: Purchasing, Fleet & Property, told Free Press Online, that Mr. Ross was not correct on his furniture facts.

"That is absolutely not true," said Ms. Hipwell. "We held a competitive bid process in 2002 for Office Furniture . We had three or four bidders, and Harkel was the successful bidder. This commodity is up for rebid in 2005."

According to the County's vendor of record list, obtained through Freedom of Information, Harkel Office Furniture is one of the few areas with a "grandfathered" clause under the category "qualified through." It was not clear what "grandfathered" means in this instance. Another commodity purchased "frequently" by the County: computer (hardware and or software) states "please contact purchasing" under vendor, and a blank for "qualified through."

"The Office Furniture line on the list I gave you was not correct," explained Ms. Hipwell in an email, Friday.  "(...) it may not be until next week that I can get back to you with the corrections to the list and the answers to your questions."

Simcoe County Warden George MacDonald, interviewed Friday morning by Free Press Online between the public and in camera portion of the performance management committee, brushed off any suggestions of financial improprieties.

"I'll just tell you very clearly we have audited financial statements signed off by the auditors for 2003," said Mr. MacDonald. "Approved by county council at our last council meeting, and to me there's no reference to any financial difficulties in the 2003 audit."

However, Ms. Black did raise a number flags particularly in the area of corporate governance in a letter to the performance management committee in October. She wrote:

"As mentioned in the management letter for the 2002 audit, the approval of the financial statements over the past few years and submission of the FIR has occurred in the fall; too long after the year end. The County of Simcoe was one of the last municipalities to file the 2002 FIR in February 2004, after direct requests from the Ministry.

The provincial downloading of services is now complete and your staffing is in place for both the new services delivered as well as the restructured organization. The year end audit should be completed on a timely basis.

We received notification of the audit tender result for 2003 services in February 2004. Because our staffing schedules were already in place for the winter months, the year end audit was scheduled for May 2004. However the final trial balance was not available in May and we delayed the audit until June 2004.

Upon our attendance many working papers were prepared, however by the end of three weeks of audit field work the general bank and reserve funds were not reconciled.

The allocation between roads maintenance and winter control was not comparative to prior years, the capital fund had not been summarized or reconciled and the opening surplus did not agree with the 2002 audited financial statements. These issues were resolved before the financial statements were issued.

Quarterly internal business plan reports have been provided to Council throughout 2003 however bank activity is pervasive throughout all of the financial records and needs to be reconciled on a monthly basis to support the integrity of such reporting.

We believe that neither County Council nor management place sufficient importance on ensuring that audited financial results are reported to the province or published on a timely basis."

New Tecumseth mayor Mike MacEachern has read Mr. Ross' letter, saying simply, "I am certainly shocked by the comments made by the gentleman and we will get to the bottom of this."

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