Thursday, March 19, 2009

City "office budgets"

Every year here in Toronto, we see what our City Councillors expense as their "office budget". Councillor Rob Ford typically spends 0, and is a sharp critic of councillor spending. The spread in spending for office expenses is from 0 to $52,750.95, according to an article in the Toronto Sun. This morning on the radio I heard a commentator picking apart the details of individual councillor spending. At least on the face of it, it looked like a stretch to call some of it office expenses. On the other hand, I suppose it's reasonable to expect an active Councillor to have more office expenses than a do-nothing Councillor. Knowing that the blowhards on Council are going to rage about this every year, you would think Councillors would want to avoid being at the top of the list. My Councillor is Mark Grimes, whose office expenses were $40,457.36, well below Councillor Giambrone, who logged the most office expenses, but also well above 11 Councillors who spent under $30k. I do know that he has a efficient office. I've been in touch with an assistant there on a couple occasions since I moved to the area, and she has been very helpful each time.

Given that our municipal taxes keep rising, do you think there should be tighter controls on City Council spending?

3 comments:

Candy Minx said...

I really think it's sick. Why would the city buy a bottle of Advil? As a bartender...believe me you get headaches. But II never went into a cash drawer and asked my boss to buy me Advil!

I think a politician shouldn't have been hired in the first place if they can't public speak. Spending on public speaking lessons is bullshit. I think it's hard to get involved in this though without knowing what the money is spent on.

What happened to staplers and stamps? heh.

I remember a couple years ago some woman had used her budget to take taxi's!

Hello...ttc!

I just totally think there should be a volunteer advocate group that sorts out these expenses and lets the politician know whether or not they can spend. It could be run on a blog...free. The politican says a blog post...I need to buy lessons in acting...er ah...I mean in public speaking.

Then people could go into the blog and leave comments whether they could spend 2000 on speaking classes etc. Or taxis etc.

These people are paid by us...they are servants not bosses...

mister anchovy said...

hey, great idea Candy

Barbara Bruederlin said...

I assume this doesn't include any staff salaries? $40,000 can buy a lot of staples.