Amherstburg Improving Financial Accountability

Amherstburg is almost done implementing third party recommendations after its financial mess came to light. Many new financial policies were unveiled, which means the town has met 38 of the 41 suggestions from the Deloitte report. Mayor Aldo DiCarlo says this is a big milestone for the town. "I think the Deloitte report was kind of the beginning of restructuring for the town and it's also something that's concrete and easy to monitor, like a report card," DiCarlo says. Unlike before, DiCarlo says the town will now carefully track its money -- cash, cheques, automatic payments -- and everything related to collecting and spending taxpayer dollars. At one time the town accumulated more than $40-million in debt and misplaced $6-million from the reserve account. DiCarlo says administration should have all 41 recommendations complete in a few months. "(This is) something that the residents are going to be able to use to measure on how council and administration is doing," he says.