Asian trip most costly tab among council travel bills

Even though it was cut short because of a medical issue, a trip to the Philippines by Coun. Randy Donauer and Mayor Don Atchison cost the city $11,400, a report to council says.

Donauer spent $7,240 on travel in 2012 — the most of all councillors on travel. The bulk of that money — $5,243 — was spent on the trip to see the Canadian ambassador in Manila, Philippines. Atchison, who also travelled to Singapore on the same trip, spent more than $6,600, the report says.

“Our meetings with the Canadian ambassador were very successful,” Donauer said Thursday.

“We were able to discuss immigration generally, but the mayor and I were also able to take a number of cases to the ambassador and discuss those with him.”

Although Donauer did conclude talks with the ambassador, he was unable to join the mayor on the second leg of the trip, which involved going to the World Cities Summit in Singapore. His trip was cut short because an undisclosed medical issue.

“I had a medical issue when I was there and my trip got cut short. The mayor continued on the Singapore without me. After getting out of the hospital I was ordered to come straight home,” Donauer said.

“Would I have liked to continue on to the World City Summit? Absolutely. Did the city incur any expense because of my personal situation? Not at all.”

The money spent by Atchison on that trip was half the total $12,809 the mayor spent on travel in 2012. Other destinations included Vancouver and Ottawa.

In total councillors — not including the mayor — spent nearly $29,000 on travel in 2012.

Coun. Darren Hill had $6,500 in travel expenses, the second highest, while former councillor Bev Dubois, at $5,200, was the third highest.

Atchison was paid $11,574 in car allowance for getting around the city on city business. At $3,260, Coun. Pat Lorje received the most car allowance money.

City councillors have access to three separate budgets for their expense claims: An individual travel and training allowance of $3,500 each, a common travel and training budget of $24,000 to attend conferences on behalf of the city and a vehicle allowance budget of $15,000 for the group, which pays them 52 cents per kilometre for city-related travel.