Cr spending gets reviewed

THE costs racked up by Whitsunday councillors have been unveiled through an audit, which has prompted changes to be recommended for the way telephone bills, accommodation bookings and meal expenses are handled.

An internal audit of Whitsunday Regional Council was done by accounting firm Crowe in March 2019 to ensure councillors’ reimbursements and expenses were correct.

The audit revealed that from July 1, 2018, to March 29, 2019, during the term of the previous council, councillors claimed $45,411 in reimbursements.

The reimbursements varied from more than $20,000 to $257 between the six councillors and mayor.

When broken down into categories, it was identified travel and accommodation was the largest councillor expense, coming in at $23,987.56.

Next was registration costs, which sat at nearly $10,000.

Telephone landline and mobile costs totalled just over $8000 with meal expenses coming in at about $3000 and incidental expenses $245.84.

The audit triggered a series of recommendations.

These recommendations included ensuring better records of hospitality expenses were kept by the council after it was found that while councillors have a hospitality allowance in line with policy, it was “not kept track of over the course of the year”.

Council policy allows the mayor to claim up to $4000 a year for “hospitality expenses deemed necessary in the conduct of council business”.

Under the same policy, councillors have an allowance of $500 a year.

The audit documents stated “through discussions with council support staff, it was identified that in some instances, accommodation for conferences was booked in line with councillor preference for hotels and not in accordance with the Reimbursement of Expenses and Provision of Facilities for Councillors Policy”.

According to policy, accommodation bookings should be “the most economic, convenient to the event and where possible a minimum of four stars should be booked”.

The audit investigation found “in some instances the hotel booked did not present the best value for money”.

The audit recommended council support staff be solely responsible for accommodation bookings.

The audit recommended practices be put in place to ensure uniform purchases were made in line with policy after it was identified “when reimbursement is sought for shoes purchased under the Uniform and Clothing Policy, no check is performed to ensure that the shoes purchased are in line with the policy”.

Further clarity over phone bills was recommended after the audit identified councillors seeking reimbursement “were required to provide only one monthly account invoice and each subsequent reimbursement has been based off of the original invoice provided”.