Edmonton city staff and council members are concerned that former city employees manage Sand Recycling Ltd., the company carrying out the beleaguered winter sand recycling program.

After discussing a scathing report on the program that highlights ambiguous wording in the contracts and poor oversight, the audit committee asked Thursday for more information on legislating a cooling off period.

Read More | Sand recycling program under review following scathing audit

A cooling off period would mean there would be a set amount of time that has to pass before a former city employee can be directly or indirectly contracted to do work for the city.

City manager Linda Cochrane said there is "no question" Edmonton needs to pursue this.

I think after this we're anxious ourselves to define [cooling off] more specifically in a policy. - Linda Cochrane

"I think we thought we had it covered well through the employee [code of] conduct, which says 'use good judgement and don't put yourself in a situation where anybody could question your motivation,'" Cochrane said.

"I think after this we're anxious ourselves to define [cooling off] more specifically in a policy and basically state if you work for the city there needs to be a certain amount of time before you can work as a contractor for the city,"

When the contracts to clean the winter sand from Edmonton roads were awarded 10 years ago, the former city employees managing Sand Recycling Ltd. had only recently left, Cochrane said.

Audit points to contract mismanagement

The program has cost the city a total of $74 million.

The report states 80 per cent of the winter sand is being recycled, But whether the $2.5 million the program is supposed to save Edmonton annually is being realized remains a question mark.

"All in all, it wasn't well administered or managed and, certainly, there was no good paper trail on this," Cochrane said.

Now, contract management is more consolidated, and there is now a law procurement branch. The city employees who were overseeing the winter sand recycling program in earlier days no longer work there.

Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said "there's inconclusive evidence as to whether there was wrongdoing." (CBC )

"Those individuals either left to work for this contractor, which is troubling, or retired or resigned along the way," said Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said. "There was nobody left to be terminated at the conclusion of this process."

The city has launched an internal investigation and is reviewing the program.

"At this point, there's inconclusive evidence as to whether there was wrongdoing. At this point, it's the appearance of things which is troubling," Iveson said.

Program on hold

The winter sand recycling program, the contract for which is due in December, did not run this year. Deputy city manager of operations Doug Jones attributed the pause to "a number of factors."

Deputy city manager of operations Doug Jones said the pause in sand cleaning came from a "number of options." (CBC)

"Not the audit, necessarily," he said. "Just some other issues we've been working through. Not really at liberty to discuss them because of the contractual nature of the issue."

The city will be putting down 135,000 tonnes of new sand this winter — the cost of the new sand is $2.5 million.

Jones said the money is there to pay for it, some of it will come from the savings of not running the winter sand recycling program this year.

roberta.bell@cbc.ca

@roberta__bell