Strength in numbers

Numbers. For some people, mathematicians for example, they’re as beautiful as sunsets over the ocean or piano concertos written by Mozart.

For most us, though, they’re an ugly nuisance, useful only when calculating the cost of groceries or the value of one’s pay cheque.

But those financial professionals who work with numbers, especially those who record and analyze the large amounts of public money that flow in and out of governments and other public institutions, perform a vital service.

That service is vital not only for those who work inside government, and those who sit in the legislature. It’s vital for all of us.

The most important policy decisions that governments get to make are decisions about how and where to spend our money. It’s the act of creating and carrying out its budgets that reveals a government’s true values and priorities. Those budgets also provide government with an opportunity to fulfill its main duty of trust — the duty to spend money only in the public interest, and only with the consent of the public.

The Nunavut government — in other words, Premier Paul Okalik, his seven ministers, and the 1,900 or so civil servants who take direction from them — owe the same duty to the people of Nunavut. To ensure that they carry it out, the 11 members who sit as regular MLAs are supposed to act as our watchdogs.

At any rate, that’s the theory.

In practice, it doesn’t quite work that way. There are various reasons for this, including the inexperience of many MLAs, the immaturity of the government, the weaknesses of the consensus system, human frailty, and the continuation of dubious practices inherited from the GNWT.

For example, by March 31, 2000, the government had already committed itself to spending $476 million in lease payments over 20 years — under agreements that have received no debate in the assembly and no public scrutiny. In 2000-1, the government entered into another $145 million worth of leases, again, with no public debate by MLAs and no public scrutiny.

The government is now contemplating operating leases for three badly needed health facilities in Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit, in processes that, until this point, have received little scrutiny from MLAs or the public.

Putting all that aside, however, one major reason, exposed in the auditor general of Canada’s first report on the Nunavut government’s public accounts, is that the Nunavut government does not have enough qualified financial workers. That ranges from accounting clerks, whose job is to enter information into computers, to trained professional accountants, who require up to seven years of training before they can be considered qualified to do their jobs.

Sheila Fraser, Canada’s auditor general, told members of the legislative assembly’s standing committee on government operations this week that the Nunavut government’s shortage of trained accountants is the most serious shortage.

“Until it has the right kind of trained accountants throughout Nunavut, the government’s financial management systems and processes will be at risk,” her report says.

As in nursing and other professions, Nunavut must compete with the rest of Canada to find qualified accountants. Since there is a nation-wide shortage of accountants, the Nunavut government has been unable to find staff for jobs that must be filled by accounting professionals.

Bob Vardy, Nunavut’s deputy minister of finance, says the government does not dispute Fraser’s opinion about the shortage of qualified financial staff. He said the government has advertised some jobs twice without being able to find qualified people to fill them.

Vardy said that staff shortages have even hampered the finance department’s ability to develop new policies. For example, in response to a question by Nanulik MLA James Arvaluk about suitable tax policies for Nunavut, Vardy said the government’s difficulties in recruiting a manager of taxation has prevented it from moving on the issue.

Another serious problem created by the government’s financial staffing shortage is that it’s making decentralized government functions more difficult to manage. One unintended consequence of dividing government functions among 11 widely scattered communities is that inexperienced managers are now working in relative isolation, without the support they would otherwise expect to get within a more centralized system.

Fraser told MLAs this week that decentralization requires that strong, experienced financial managers be located in the decentralized communities. “[T]he government needs to ensure that it has the people it needs — in all areas, including financial management — to make sure that decentralization plans work,” Fraser said.

For the public, and for regular MLAs, the most serious consequence of financial understaffing is that the public and MLAs will not get financial information in time to help the government make good decisions about how to spend its money. The deputy minister admits that staff shortages have already caused some government departments to miss financial reporting deadlines, and said that’s why annual reports for several Crown corporations and other agencies haven’t been produced on time.

But where there is chaos, there is opportunity. For Nunavummiut who want to pursue accounting careers, the opportunities appear to be limitless.

The deputy minister of finance says his department is already working with the department of education and Nunavut Arctic College to provide more financial training to Nunavummiut. The government should do what it can to strengthen and expand these efforts. This should include a review of how arithmetic and mathematics are taught within the K-12 system.

Nunavummiut, especially young Nunavummiut, can help too. You can pursue accounting or financial management as a career, and learn to develop the desire and self-discipline it takes to become a chartered accountant.

Any takers?

JB