Richmond Hill eases rules guiding how councillors spend $450K expenses budget

Regional councillors DiPaola and Perrelli were the top two spenders for Q1-3 2019.

Yorkregion.com
March 5, 2020
Sheila Wang

With more money at their service, Richmond Hill councillors have given themselves more flexibility to use public dollars.

A majority of council members approved an updated council expense policy that guides elected officials to claim public expenses, effective immediately, at the Feb. 26 council meeting.

The motion put forward by Regional Coun. Carmine Perrelli was intended to “provide flexibility” and “clear up misconceptions” in the way councillors use their individual budgets for the purpose of performing diverse roles and representing their constituents.

The decision came shortly after the city adopted the 2020 operating budget, which saw councillors receive another $192,000 additional budget for administrative support -- as they did in 2019. It was put in place for regional councillors to hire “full-time support staff” and for ward councillors to bring in “temporary help,” according to the city.

Under the new rules, councillors are free to choose how they want to spend the money as the three previous budget categories -- support, constituency, and communication budget -- have now been lumped into one general constituency budget.

“I think having categories is what our constituencies are looking for because it helps them understand where we're spending the money,” said Coun. David West, who voted against the motion and also raised “transparency” concerns.

The new policy means the elected officials claim as much money as they wish on work dinners, newsletters or hired help at the taxpayers’ expense as long as they don’t blow over the total limit.

But it doesn't change much, interim city manager Mary-Anne Dempster said, explaining that the city never holds the councillors to the individual items anyway.

“We balance to the bottom line of your budget so if you go over on one (category) and under on another, we don’t address those ... There is no issue with transparency, to my knowledge, with what we’re proposing,” she said.

Dempster, who is the city’s commissioner of corporate and financial services, stepped into the new role following the departure of former city manager Neil Garbe on Feb. 13 with no reasons provided.

Council adopted a total of $450,200 expense budget for 2020, the same amount as last year, according to spokesperson Libbi Hood. It is a 50 per cent increase from the council expense budget in 2018.

Mayor Dave Barrow is able to expense $69,800 while the two regional councillors have $66,300 each at hand, according to the city.

Each ward councillor has been allocated a budget of $41,300, as well.

Meanwhile, the new policy allows them to carry forward a portion of their unused annual budget for previously committed expenses into the next budget calendar.

“I'm having a hard time finding the actual example where I can think in my day-to-day life as a councillor that would be necessary,” West said, before moving to refer it back to staff for more information.

He was quickly outvoted despite garnering support from fellow councillors Karen Cilevitz and Godwin Chan.

“The transparency is exactly the same as it was before, and that’s not changing. And to suggest anything otherwise would be disingenuous,” Perrelli said of the “fearmongering activities” he has seen on social media.

Despite flexibility in use, councillors are no longer able to reimburse their donations to local community groups and individuals under the new guideline.

Some councillors may be impacted more than others as the amounts of the donations ranged from zero to thousands of dollars, according to their expenditure records from January to September 2019 on the city’s website.

For example, Cilevitz donated over $4,000 in the first three quarters of last year, accounting for one-third of her expense.

This is the second time that the current council -- halfway through the term -- has made changes in councillors’ use of public money.

Earlier in 2019, council voted to add a new $204,000 communication budget for all members to use on the public's dime.

During the same budget deliberations, councillors also decided to increase their budgets for administrative support by a total of $292,000, which resulted in the hiring of Chief of Staff Mike Makrigiorgos for Perrelli, his fellow regional Coun. Joe DiPaola and Coun. Greg Beros.

About half of the additional support -- $150,000 -- was included in the council expense budget. The rest, which went toward regional councillors’ support staff, was funded through the staff salary budget, Hood noted.

How your elected officials spent your tax dollars?

In the first three quarters, nine city councillors spent over $120,000 collectively, over half of which was paid for communications, Richmond Hill’s records show.

Regional councillors DiPaola and Perrelli were the top two spenders, shelling out close to $30,000 and over $28,000 respectively from January to September 2019.

The pair were also the two largest spenders on communications, which accounted for roughly 80 per cent of their expenses each, the records show.

Even though the regional councillors each spent over $20,000 on advertising, newsletters printing and postage for the first nine months last year, they were still far from reaching the annual budget -- $56,000 each -- originally set aside for communications.

When it comes to community expenses in the form of donations -- which will no longer be allowed under the new policy -- the two regional councillors ranked at the bottom, only higher than Mayor Dave Barrow.

Barrow claimed a little over $3,000 for the first nine months last year, which was the smallest amount of public money expensed among all.

How did council expense budget change from 2018 to 2020?

2018: A total budget of $300,200

2019: $204,000 communication budget + $92,700 constituency budget + $150,000 support budget = $446,700

2020: A total budget of $450,200