Audit of Halifax mayor’s expenses prompts council to seek region-wide reform plan

HALIFAX — A Halifax council committee has called for a plan to improve financial accountability within the mayor’s office and the municipality in general after an audit raised questions about $111,000 in Andy Fillmore’s mayoral expenses.

The finance committee voted Wednesday to have the chief administrative officer develop corrective measures following the June audit, which found four transactions handled by Fillmore’s office did not comply with municipal policies.

The audit prompted the region’s auditor general to refer the matter to the RCMP.

Fillmore did not take part in the committee’s discussion Wednesday, saying there was concern he might be in a conflict of interest.

The approved motion, however, included amendments from the mayor that broadened the scope of the plan to cover not only his office, but the entire municipality.

“I have accepted the auditor general’s findings, but accountability means more than identifying where a problem started — it means understanding how it happened, fixing every weakness … and making sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said in a statement released Wednesday.

“I’m pleased the chair (of the committee) incorporated the changes I proposed and that we found a collaborative way to strengthen accountability for taxpayers. I expect the same standard to apply across the municipality.”

The plan is expected to be delivered to council within two months.

Coun. Sam Austin said he hoped the plan would revisit a decision by the region’s previous chief administrative officer to grant the mayor’s office more independence.

“That independence came and the whole thing crashed in the ditch immediately and thereafter,” Austin told the committee. “Is that stand-alone independence really a good idea, given what has transpired?”

In June, the municipality’s auditor general, Andrew Atherton, told the committee that he called in the Mounties after completing his audit because he “felt this was a little past my comfort zone …. I’m not qualified to say whether something is illegal or not.”

At the time, Fillmore stressed that he and his staff had received more training on the procurement processes. As for the transactions in question, he said they moved through an approval process that included sign-off from senior officials.

The largest expense was filed last year after the mayor’s office hired a human resources consultant to help with hiring staff. This was supposed to cost $50,000, but the final bill was $90,000.

Atherton found that the contract was negotiated directly with the consultant without competitive bids that would have been required through the municipality’s regular procurement process. And he noted that staff had suggested the mayor’s office had a clear preference for the consultant in question.

Still, the auditor confirmed that the invoice for the job, like the invoices for the other three expenses, had been properly approved and the bill was reasonable.

For another contract, Atherton said the mayor’s office again failed to follow the procurement process last year when they spent $14,000 to hire a speech writer without inviting other bids or issuing a contract to define expectations.

The other two contracts — worth more than $7,000 in total — were for external legal services that weren’t approved by the regional government’s solicitor, as required by the municipality’s procurement rules.

Fillmore has said he personally repaid the legal expenses, though he insisted they weren’t personal expenses.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 13, 2026.

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press