Halifax has major gaps in its assessment of snow clearing, according to the city’s auditor general.

Auditor Andrew Atherton says the city is not collecting enough information to assess the performance of snow removal and winter road maintenance.

Atherton says the auditor’s office did not look at how well the snow was being cleared. They simply looked at how the city is tracking snow clearing and winter management.

“This is how well HRM is managing the process, and we found that they really aren’t. There’s a lot of work to be done to get adequate management,” said Atherton.

The audit found there is no formal assessment for how well contractors or in-house workers are clearing the streets in the winter.

They also aren’t tracking to see if snow removal complaints are addressed in a timely manner, according to the report.

The report included 13 recommendations in total, and city management has agreed to implement them all.

The auditor says that, because there is not enough tracking to evaluate the snow removal performance, it’s impossible to tell whether the city is effectively keeping streets clean or not.

More to come…