CMQ report alleges former Waltham DG committed numerous ethical and professional violations
CMQ report alleges former Waltham DG committed numerous ethical and professional violations
A report published by the Commission municipale du Quebec (CMQ) last week following a lengthy investigation alleges a litany of ethical and professional violations committed by the former director general of the Municipality of Waltham, Fernand Roy. The investigation began after Mayor Odette Godin raised several concerns following an external auditor’s report in 2023, and it found he committed “serious mismanagement” and misused public funds for his personal benefit. The report states that Roy hired his wife, asked elected officials to sign stacks of blank cheques as well as using his personal email and computer for municipal business. It also notes that the municipal records have gaps and are disorganized, leaving Annick Plante, the current DG hired in March 2024, to rebuild them while maintaining her regular duties.
In a written statement to CHIP 101.9, Roy denied any wrongdoing and disputed the report’s findings.
“I do not intend to openly contest all of the allegations that I consider wrong and defamatory against me and my wife,” he wrote. “However, I wish to inform the citizens of Waltham that I have always acted in good faith and for the benefit of the municipality and find important to reestablish certain facts.”
He wrote that the blank cheques were always used for legitimate expenses that were approved by council, and previous councils knew about his wife’s hiring and approved it.
“Finally, in all of my years of service to the municipality before the audit in September 2023, I was never informed that some of our administrative procedures were flawed and/or that some changes were required,” he wrote. “If I had been informed of an irregularity, I would have made the necessary changes to make sure that everything was done correctly.”
The report did not name Roy, and he asked that his name not be published, however, in the interest of transparency, CHIP 101.9 decided to publish it.
It should be noted that a CMQ investigation is different from a criminal investigation, and these findings have not been tested in court.
“The findings of the facts, the conclusions and the recommendations contained in this document cannot be considered as declarations of criminal or civil liability,” the report states (translated). “Also, the rules of evidence and procedure adopted during the administrative investigation are different from those that govern the courts of justice.”
Originally hired in 1985, Roy resigned from the municipality in February 2024, shortly before the start of the CMQ’s investigation. He worked full time, but from a home office the majority of the time. In addition to his municipal duties, he operated a business from his home office, keeping books and applying for permits for various organizations.
The CMQ report also notes the pushback that Godin received from some of her fellow council members when she raised concerns.
“As time went by, conflicts became more serious, with some elected officials going so far as to question the validity of the audit report and some of them criticizing the measures taken by the mayor to follow the recommendations.”
Misconduct allegations
“The investigation showed that the management and governance of the municipality are based entirely on the trust of elected officials in the director general. Thus, until the resignation of the director general, the council endorsed, without questioning, the decisions that were, for the most part, made by the director general, who did not adequately inform the council of several issues,” the report’s preamble notes (translated). “This situation of the council is due to a poor understanding of its own roles and responsibilities as well as the mode of operation of the director general. The municipal organization is based essentially on verbal agreements of which only the director general is aware. Thus, the employees’ working conditions, their tasks and privileges were agreed upon a long time ago and have been perpetuated over time without being written or adopted by resolution.”
The misconduct that the report alleges is quite wide ranging. Roy routinely had the mayors sign a series of blank cheques. Godin said that she initially went along with the practice after being elected mayor in 2021 and said it made her uneasy, but given Roy’s length of experience, she didn’t want to rock the boat. She said that when she finally refused to sign without seeing the associated invoices, he claimed that it might cause certain payments to be late and would hold her responsible.
There were no employment contracts drawn up for any municipal employees, including Roy, and certain bonuses and benefits were granted without any written justification, the report states. Further, it highlights the lack of organization of municipal documents.
“Specifically, the municipal office contains a filing cabinet containing permits and another filing cabinet without a logical organization containing few documents and empty files. In addition, there are several cardboard boxes identified by year containing a set of documents and invoices. However, there is no intelligible system to identify what can be found there,” it states (translated). “Contrary to the requirements of Act 12, there is therefore no directory to view municipal documentation such as by-laws, resolutions or other archives (if they exist). Our conclusions are similar regarding computer archiving. When he left, the director general left the municipality with a computer containing documents recorded without names. In addition, the history of electronic correspondence is altered by the director general’s use of his personal company email address for his municipal duties. Although this correspondence is in fact the property of the municipality, it is now dispossessed of it. Tracking citizen files, bids and past purchases is now difficult. This lack of documentation and archiving deprives the municipality of its history and weakens its administration.”
The report notes Roy paid his wife a salary for approximately 10 years, listed under the urban planning budget line. The report also questions the exact nature of his spouse’s employment.
“Our findings are that the issuance of cheques by the municipality in the name of the spouse of the director general constitutes the only existing trace linking her to the municipality. More specifically, no writing, no gesture, no contact with a citizen or elected official supports that this person was actually employed by the municipality,” it states (translated). “Only the director general and his spouse support the truth of this employment, which she supposedly performed entirely from home, and which they reduce to sorting, stamping and preparing municipal mail. They explain that given the help she provided to her spouse in his daily duties, they decided that it would be fair and beneficial for her to be employed by the municipality, in order to benefit from certain social benefits. At the same time, we note that despite these ‘administrative’ functions that the spouse of the director general allegedly held, this job was listed under the ‘urban planning’ budget item. The inclusion of this budget item can be explained by the fact that the director general attributed to himself, in addition to his duties, urban planning functions, since he registered permits in place of the municipal inspector, the latter not knowing how to use a computer.”
Roy delivered her letter of resignation in October 2023 after the auditor’s report raised questions about her hiring, and submitted a resolution to increase his salary by the amount that was paid to his wife. The resolution was vetoed by Godin, but his salary was increased in the following budget.
Investigators also found that Roy was submitting regular invoices to the municipality for the use of his personal internet, fax machine and telephone line, which he also used for his private business. The report lays out several issues with this practice:
“1) First of all, the director general is an employee of the municipality. He cannot therefore issue invoices personally as if he were a self-employed worker.
2) Legally, only the council can grant such financial benefits. However, no resolution of the council allows this.
3) The municipality already commits financial resources annually to make all of these services available to the director general at the municipal office. Therefore, the municipality pays them twice.
4) Such invoicing deprives the municipality of financial funds that it can normally recover through the return of taxes from which it benefits.”
In addition, the report states Roy owned the “municipal computer” and charged the municipality a monthly fee for its use.
“According to the director general, it began because elected officials did not want to spend money on purchasing a municipal computer. Since then, he has also used the computer for his personal business, and purchases a new computer approximately every three years,” it states (translated). “He himself claims to throw away the old computers as they come, although there is no control mechanism to confirm his statements. The investigation showed that the director general continues to receive a monthly payment even after the computer has been paid. Computer costs are therefore exorbitant for the municipality, which finds itself paying for a computer well above its cost price. In addition, this practice causes the municipality to lose the benefit of recovering taxes when purchasing the computer, and prevents it from recovering the computers after three years of life in order to dispose of them as it seeks. Finally, let us mention that the municipality should be the owner of the municipal computer that holds taxpayers’ personal data and financial information that should be secured there.”
The report also states that elected officials weren’t kept in the loop about municipal business, including the auditor’s report that eventually triggered the investigation.
“We also note that relevant information is not always transmitted to the council, as was initially the case for the audit report of the external auditor,” it states (translated). “In fact, the auditor’s annual proposal to the director general to meet with the council to explain his audit was never transmitted to the council by the director general.”
Conclusion and recommendations
In the report’s conclusion, it highlights municipal council members’ poor understanding of their roles and responsibilities which allowed the situation to take place for so long. However, it commends Godin for her actions which ultimately brought the situation to light.
“It should be mentioned that the mayor, despite the opposition she may have experienced, behaved as she should have done,” the report states (translated). “She fulfilled her monitoring and investigation duties in accordance with the Act, questioned practices that were not recommended and wanted to follow up on the recommendations of the external auditor.”
Godin told CHIP 101.9 that the process had been difficult, but felt vindicated by the report.
The report also offers six recommendations for the municipality, some of which are already underway:
– tabling the report at the next council meeting on September 3
– investing financial and human resources to help the DG rectify the situation at the town hall
– that council follow the recommendations of the external auditor
– they mandate a third party to investigate how a lack of archives impacts the validity of Waltham’s acts, by-laws and contracts, and if necessary, rectify the situation
– appoint an observer to verify that the recommendations sufficiently correct the problems noted in the report
– actively collaborate with the observer to ensure that their mandate is carried out, and implementing any further corrective measures they recommend.
