The National Arts Centre is getting a big thumbs down from federal auditors for its budgeting — again.
Ottawa says the Crown corporation didn’t set aside enough cash for maintenance and repairs, even after taxpayers were charged a quarter-billion for renovations, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
“We found significant deficiencies in all risk management systems and practices,” the Auditor General wrote in a Special Examination Report.
“Despite its renovations from 2015 to 2019 the corporation made little effort to secure funding for ongoing maintenance and repairs,” said the report.
“The building’s physical infrastructure still needs significant repairs and upgrades.”
The feds spent $225.4 million to refit the building.
The centre’s directors were also blamed for a $5.9 million debt despite yearly grants of $35 million.
The Crown corporation spends $75 million a year with ticket and booze sales and hall rentals making up the rest.
It was the second failed audit for the Arts Centre in the past decade.
Previously cost over-runs at the concert hall prompted two parliamentary investigations.
The Arts Centre was opened in 1969 by then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and was originally budgeted at $23 million but costs doubled to $46.4 million by the time it opened.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
