If there is one guaranteed eye-glazing, head-dropping, bored-to-Pete council committee, it is surely The Audit Committee.

I chaired the Audit Committee at London City Council for four or five years. (I had a lot of business experience and was a newbie, so I got 'stuck' with it). I'm not sure I ever received a serious question from anybody on council when we reported on the annual audit.

City halls and the federal and provincial government audits are quite different animals. Canada's Auditor-General reported the other day; her report was focused on various aspects of federal government abuses, operational malfunctions, waste of public money and other governments sins and misdemeanors.

Such a report always draws a raucous press gallery that delights in pointing out malfeasance and policy miscalculations to an interested public.

Municipal audits tend to focus on the city's finances. There is likely to be an in-camera report on management issues or controls or weaknesses that were determined by the auditors during testing of the systems in place. A municipal audit is generally quite different in scope and direction from an operational and program audit for the senior orders of government.

It is extremely rare to find financial corruption in Canadian city halls. Oh, it's happened, and I suppose will happen again, but there are so many checks and balances these days, and so much scrutiny that it would take a very clever and sophisticated scam to succeed.

That isn't a challenge, by the way.

Most members of a council in Canada are part-time. Few of them have business or upper management experience. It is very challenging to have to plunge into complicated financial statements and analyses if you don't have training and knowledge of the field. This is often a problem for city councillors who may come from a community or social background and whose expertise is not necessarily in the financial or management fields.

Yet the truth is that every municipality needs a strong Audit committee, and a vigorous review by its city council to ensure that its financial status is reported openly and accurately.

A good audit can also be a distant warning signal. Are some department's expenses seemingly too high or are they missing budgets each year? Are there discrepancies in year-to-year costs? Why? Are revenue trends going up or down? Are there changes in tax categories and the revenue they produce? Are the municipality's investments getting the highest, safest return possible? Have there been any major surprises in spending categories?

These and other questions are very legitimate to explain at a council meeting, and through that process to the taxpayers that 'own' the corporation.

While Audit Committee reports will not usually have the pizzazz of some reports at council, you can make the argument that they may be the most important report of the year.

The results of the audit aren't boring. They aren't obscure. They shouldn't be a mystery. They are a vital part of the democratic process and prove to the 'shareholders' the financial stability and management prowess of the corporation.

That's why the 'board of directors' (the municipal council) should be knowledgeable about audits and financial matters for the city or town. Because if you ever miss the signs of problems or financial malfeasance, then the public will immediately turn on its elected officials and blame them.