No increase in calls made to Sudbury's Wrongdoing Hotline

A new report shows that Sudbury residents are continuing to make use of the Wrongdoing Hotline, a number where people can call with concerns about possible illegal or dishonest activity within municipal government.

The line was set up in June 2016 and the complaints registered with it could involve politicians, city staff or management.

As a meeting on Tuesday, councillors were told between June and December of 2018, there were more than 80 complaints called in. That's similar to the same time period in 2017.

Auditor general Ron Foster says complaints vary from concerns about abuse of social media, to garbage pick up, to harassment in the workplace.

"Half of our complaints relate to items that can be resolved by various functions in the city that are established to manage certain types of complaints such as service related complaints, garbage wasn't picked up and or our road wasn't plowed on a timely basis," he said.

"If sensitive complaints do come along, we have the discretion of bringing in third party investigators to look at human resource complaints or complaints that my office is leading."

Foster says complaints about service are referred to the 311 centre because they don't fall within the scope of the wrongdoing hotline.

He says for complaints that are investigated, there are expected timelines for resolutions, usually between 30 and 120 days.

He adds they haven't had to refer any complaints to third party investigators during the last seven months.