Saskatoon city councillors spent more on travel in 2017 compared to the previous two years, but still came in under budget.
Last year councillors spent $68,581.86 on travel and training expenses, according to a city report. That figure is up from $38,375.49 in 2016 and $57,215.73 the year before.
Each councillor is allotted money each year to spend on traveling and training, which is broken into three categories.
The first category, general travel and training, includes attending annual conferences such as the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association’s and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’s. Councillors used $25,749.32 of the budgeted $35,000 in that category.
The second is for common travel and training. Councillors can use this money if they are an official appointed city representative to an organization to attend their annual board meetings and conferences. Councillors spent $22,836.76 of the $24,000 budget.
The third category is considered an “other” for travel and training that doesn’t fall within the first two categories and is paid for by another entity like a police, fire or general pension fund. Councillors didn’t spend any of the $7,000 budget, but spent $19,995.60 in this category, which was paid for by pension funds.
Mayor Charlie Clark spent $7,552.58 of his $42,000 travel budget last year, all of which was within Canada. In 2016 (serving between January – October) former mayor Don Atchison spent $4,471.46 for trips within Canada and spent just over $7,000 on a trip to Singapore for the World Cities Summit.
Ward 1 councillor Darren Hill spent the most on travel last year, around $20,000, much of which went to meetings for the FCM. Ward 9 councillor Bev Dubois spent the least money – just over $1,000 on two trips to Regina.
The city’s governance and priorities committee is set to review the report Monday.
