Town of Coaldale hires third-party auditor to review compensation proposals

Posted on October 9, 2025 by Sunny South News

By Kristine Jean
Sunny South News

The Town of Coaldale hired an independent third-party auditor to review the town’s final offer and AUPE’s latest counter-proposal.

Town of Coaldale council voted unanimously to bring in the independent, third-party auditor, at the Sept. 15 regular council meeting, after the need for clarification on what the town has offered its unionized staff and what AUPE was demanding in terms of wage increases, was brought to council’s attention.   

At that meeting council passed the following motion. 

“THAT Council directs Administration to engage an independent third-party auditor to review both the Town’s most recent offer to AUPE and AUPE’s most recent counter proposal and prepare a report calculating the true percentage increase associated with each position.

FURTHERMORE, the third-party report will be provided publicly so that residents, Council, and employees have a clear and independent assessment of the numbers. Councillors Abrey, Beekman and Mayor Van Rijn will choose the auditor.

FURTHER, THAT a Special Council Meeting be scheduled for September 22, 2025, where the auditor, pending availability, will report back to Council on the respective percentages.”

Van Rijn said the third-party auditor’s job was to calculate the true percentage increase for each proposal and prepare a report detailing the true percentage increases for each position.  

“This is about transparency and trust – something we as a council have always and will always take seriously,” said Van Rijn. “We have absolutely no reservations about submitting our math for review to external third-party experts.” 

The auditor’s report was presented publicly at a special council meeting on Sept. 22, where David Burton, a partner with MNP LLP provided an auditor reporting update on the town and AUPE’s compensation proposals. 

At the Sept. 22, meeting, Mayor Van Rijn  provided some background on how the town arrived at the decision to hire the auditor and why council felt it was important to retain the services of an independent auditor. 

“We also resolved (Sept. 15) that this report be made public to residents, council and employees (so they) could all see a clear, an independent breakdown of the numbers,” said Van Rijn, noting AUPE’s alllegations that the town’s 17 per cent cumulative four-year increase they offered its unionized employees were numbers that were not true. 

“Rather than going back and forth in a never ending argument about whether the four-year cumulative increase (was) 17 per cent or not, council believed it was better for credibility and accountability to have both sets of numbers audited independently,” explained Van Rijn.

For MNP’s review, the town provided them with the four-year grid from the union’s most recent counter-offer of June 24, 2025 and the four-year grid from the town’s Comprehensive Offer #3.

In his presentation to council Burton highlighted Appendix A which described general comments and assumptions, Appendix B which detailed the town’s offer and Appendix C which outlined AUPE’s requests. Burton also detailed several procedures they conducted and their findings.   

“We did however, compare the specific grid levels and classifications identified to the prior contract and found that the hourly rates that were presented were accurate,” said Burton. “The calculation findings referred to in this report are determined based solely on the proposed changes to the hourly grid classification schedules. It does not take into account any other factors that may be included in the contract such as sick leave, shift premiums, RRSP matching contributions or medical or other benefits that may have changed in the contract, have not been considered,” he added.  

 Following Burton’s presentation, Coaldale councillors passed a motion to accept the third-party review of town and AUPE compensation proposals as information.