No longer can Thompson-Nicola Regional District staff members expense business items that affect the entire corporation.

Before suddenly parting ways with the TNRD in February of 2020, former chief administrative officer Sukh Gill spent $5,051 on his work credit card in his last three months. About one-third of that was for general business expenses. The expenses were made public earlier this month when the regional district released its annual Statement of Information report.

Legislative services director Deanna Campbell says the policy was changed last year after Gill’s departure. She says the CAO’s executive assistant now makes those general business purchases, with approval from the CAO and TNRD board.

“So essentially anything that needs to be purchased that benefits the entire organization. So for example, our local government association memberships, our UBCM memberships, our Civic Info memberships, those would be put on that card,” Campbell says.

“But it was certainly a change in management and practices. As you know, Randy Diehl came in as the interim CAO for some time, and he had a different view of things and a different way of doing things. And now Scott Hildebrand’s here. I think for all of our benefits, it made more sense to ensure we were only using our corporate cards for things that were associated with our individual business transactions.”

Following an investigation by Kamloops This Week into past spending on Gill’s work credit card – which totalled $517,000 between 2015 and early 2020 – an independent audit is being done by a fraud investigator with BDO Canada, which will be finished later this summer.