Taxpayer watchdogs question payment to retiring councillor
Politician reimbused for trip to Whistler conference
A local taxpayer watchdog group is wondering whether paying for Victoria Coun. Chris Coleman to attend a conference after he had announced his retirement was money well spent.
Coleman was reimbursed $2,375.31 for his trip to Whistler Sept. 9 to 14 to attend the Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention ($765 for registration and $1,215 for accommodation).
“Certainly the question becomes what did the taxpayer gain from Mr. Coleman attending this expensive trip to Whistler essentially days before he was retiring,” said Stan Bartlett, chairman of the Grumpy Taxpayer$ of Greater Victoria.
“That dollar amount represents the taxes that one resident or one family is paying on their property and I think we have to respect that,” said Bartlett whose organization accessed the expense total through a freedom of information request.
Bartlett said the dollar amount might seem small but it is significant. His organization has filed similar requests in other jurisdictions about convention expenses paid on behalf of retiring councillors.
“I think that the small dollar amounts are as important as the big dollar amounts to taxpayers,” Bartlett said.
Coleman defended the spending. “I think the taxpayers still got value out of it,” he said, noting that at the time of the convention he was still the city’s representative on the Municipal Insurance Authority and was an alternate to the Municipal Finance Authority, both of which met at the convention.
“And I went up a day early because there were a couple of workshops I went on, one being better relations with First Nations,” he said.
“It was exhausting,” Coleman said. “I was working.”
Coleman said he purposely forwarded to council his request to attend the conference after he had announced his retirement so that his council colleagues were aware of his plans before approving it.
In their newsletter, the Grumpy Taxpayer$ say Coleman’s mileage request for 450 kilometres at 57 cents a kilometre was denied. In fact, Coleman said, it was reimbursed but through a different payment method.
“It’s the one unusual expense that actually comes back on payroll. I did get it back but I got it back in a different pay form. I think it was 53 cents [that was paid] not 57,” he said.
Coleman praised the Grumpy Taxpayer$ “for doing their job,” by keeping an eye on councillor expenses.
“I’m actually quite pleased that they would look into that. They should be doing that. That’s absolutely fair. But they could have come and asked me. They didn’t have to FOI it. I would have given it to them.”
Coleman, who was an elected director of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, filed expenses of $12,572.28 in 2017, second only to Mayor Lisa Helps who filed $22,949.97 in expenses, according to the city’s latest Statement of Financial Information report.
Coleman said his Federation of Canadian Municipalities duties necessitated a lot of travel to Eastern Canada. The federation also recently changed its policy of reimbursing B.C. directors for some of those expenses, he said.