Policies on travel expenses tightened

Commission adopts new rules after discussion of mayor’s upcoming trip

Kissimmee city commissioners decided to tighten rules they follow when spending taxpayer money on travel Tuesday after a discussion about the mayor’s upcoming trip to Washington, D.C.

Commissioners voted unanimously to update policy adopted in 2017 after questions were raised about the trip. At the end of the month, Mayor Olga Gonzalez is going to represent the city at a faith-based summit.

Commissioner Angela Eady, who asked to have discussion of travel policy placed on the agenda, raised the question of whether a commissioner should even attend the summit.

“Under most circumstances, someone from staff goes to advocate for us when we travel to something of that magnitude,” Eady said.

City Manager Mike Steigerwald said the city’s lobbyist typically advocates for funding.

Gonzalez said the goal is to obtain information about federal money available through the White House Office of FaithBased and Neighborhood Partnerships in hopes of getting funds for churches which deliver social services.

“We’re going just to let them know that there’s a lot of churches here in Osceola that need those funds so that they can use them in social services to help the community,” she said. “This is for the betterment of our community and bringing in more federal funding.”

Eady questioned Gonzalez about whether she had any appointments scheduled with officials during the summit to talk about funding needs or a budget of how much the trip would cost.

The mayor said she did not because she was attending with 32 other people — mainly representatives of churches in the city — who will ask officials for funding.

“We will be speaking to some legislators just to let them know that we need the help for churches so that we can better the community,” Gonzalez said.

The old policy stated that

commissioners must only get approval by a majority of the board to travel on city funds for official business — but does not require financial disclosures before the trip.

Policy states city funds can be used for events, training sessions, conferences and travel where the mayor or commissioner is representing the city or as part of their role on a board in which they have been appointed to by the City Commission.

Eady also was concerned the trip won’t yield results quickly and questioned spending taxpayer money on an issue that isn’t a city priority.

“There’s a good chance that even if you were awarded X amount of dollars you may not see it until maybe the next fiscal year,” she said.

Despite any concerns, after the discussion commissioners unanimously approved of the mayor taking the trip. Gonzalez said she will provide an expense report and itinerary by the next commission meeting set for April 16.

When asked Thursday, a city spokeswoman said it was impossible to provide an estimate of how much the mayor’s trip will cost.

“As we are sure you are aware, with travel there are constantly fluctuating costs associated with airfare and hotel prices,” Alibeth Suarez said in an email.

Suarez said individual commissioners don’t have budgets for travel expense.

However, the city does budget for their travel. In 2024 the city budgeted $17,000 for travel for commissioners, a decrease from 2023 when it budgeted $25,965.