Latest expense data clouds Region’s transparency

Niagara Region’s professed desire to become more transparent in relation to councillor expenses took a large step backwards this month.

The Region released another batch of councillor expense data in May, covering the entire year 2017, but the release has woefully failed to provide any public insight into how individual councillors spend taxpayers’ money. As reported by Grant LaFleche this week, the release doesn't include receipts, supporting documents or even how much money councillors claimed for some items.

While past releases included itemized councillor expense forms, such as receipts, the new spreadsheet omits all sorts of key details, which results in the information lacking any real meaning as well as being next to useless. And the spreadsheet also appears to be unreliable. So let’s back up.

In early September, we reported on councillor expense claims after obtaining some regional records. We filed a freedom of information request for all expense records relating to the current term of council.

Shortly after the newspaper’s request, Regional Chair Alan Caslin filed his own FOI for the records. The Region’s information office asked The Standard to put its request aside in favour of Caslin’s. The paper refused and the Region deniediour request and processed Caslin’s. As a result, the Region in January released some 20 years of expense data, including the first half of claims from 2017. A further update to the data dump included more detail, such as invoices, restaurant bills and more.

At the time, we praised the decision to release this trove as a step in the right direction towards transparency and accountability, but noted more work needed to be done, particularly by Caslin who has not been forthcoming in explaining his own expenses.

However, this latest release is disturbing.

While the Region says it has “improved our data collection from councillors to include more specifics, which provide additional and more transparent data,” our review of the data has found, in some cases, the new format omits specific details.

For instance, previous records show Fort Erie Coun. Sandy Annunziata billed Niagara taxpayers for mileage for repeated trips to appear on a radio talk show in Toronto. His original mileage forms list dates, mileage and purpose for the expense claim. In the new data, all of those trips, along with council meetings and communities events, have been lumped under the single heading of “regional meetings” with no explanation.

When asked about this, the regional clerk’s department said publishingreceipts and other supporting documentation would be a violation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. The act requires information published by the Region online be scannable by a screen reader for people with vision impairments.

OK, perhaps, but why was a request for the detailed records by this newspaper refused? It is, or should be, public information. Instead, we were told we would have to submit a new FOI request for the detailed records, a process that could take months.

Add to this an error involving St. Catharines Coun. Andy Petrowski’s claims. The new spreadsheets include a $14,318 entry for July 2017 indicating Petrowski had claimed for more legal fees on top of the $44,570 we had previously reported on. Petrowski, when contacted, said no claim had been made and indicated the matter was closed. As it turns out, he was right.

So what happened? A data entry error of some kind we’ve been told.

Hardly the kind of stuff to inspire confidence. When combined with the lack of transparency, we’re left with only more questions.