Stouffville council expenses include $6,869 for ‘Mayors Training’

Yorkregion.com
April 13, 2016
By Ali Raza

Do you know what your mayor and councillors earn and expense?

The Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville has released an expense statement for Mayor Justin Altmann and its six councillors for 2015. All expenditures were within the approved budget limit.

The mayor’s salary, including his role as York Region councillor, stands at $104,959. He also receives $18,982 in benefits, an $8,500 car allowance, $1,411 for his smartphone and $1,926 for communication expenses.

A category listed as “other” includes a retiring allowance, attending community functions and general public relations.

Altmann’s expenses for this category stand at $26,964.03.

A great number of the mayor’s expenses involved attending meetings, events, luncheons, sponsorships and staff expenditures. They included tuxedo and limousine rentals and $6,869 for “consulting” last fall.

“The CAO (Marc Pourvahidi) had hired Michael Wolkensperg for me for three sessions of consulting,” Altmann said during a phone interview. “The sessions were talking about myself, my leadership goals and development.”

Wolkensperg is the founder and president of Rushmore Judge Inc., which provides advisory services for executive staff in mid-sized companies.

“I used him (Wolkensperg) to help educate myself about corporate efficiencies and productivity, with staff, with myself, with council and started working with some of the senior management looking at corporate morale, engagement, productivity and efficiencies in the corporation,” he said.

Town documents show one line item for “Consult-Mayors Training” and later two for “Consulting”. Each item was for $2,290.

“The initial hiring of the consultant may have been commenced by the CAO to work with the mayor,” said town spokesperson Glenn Jackson. “Perhaps the mayor continued working with the consultant at his discretion and within his budgetary limits.”

Each councillor’s salary is equal at $34,232 with benefits of $9,620 with the exception of Ward 2’s Maurice Smith whose benefits total $8,792. Councillors are deemed part-time.

Councillors also receive a car allowance of $4,000, their smartphones are covered up to $1,000 and their communication expenses vary from $1,481 for Ward 3’s Hugo Kroon to $11,401 for Ward 6’s Rob Hargrave.

Hargrave’s communications expenses consisted of various advertisements for the Ward 6 website, town festivals and holiday ads for Easter, Canada Day, Labour Day and New Year’s Day.