It's no secret that the budget is a major point of controversy within our city. After a 2-mil tax increase that was just approved with the most recent budget session, we have to wonder if cutbacks or tax increases will be explored next time around. It may be beneficial for the city to explore both options. Thus, reducing the amount of tax increase. Although the mayor already set it up as though we may see another increase this coming budget season for the 2024 year.
(Minutes from November 29, 2022, special budget meeting)
In case you have forgotten how the vote went for that 2-mil tax increase.
That said, one may think that cutbacks on spending would occur, and unnecessary expenses would be reduced. Maybe even more staff changes like what we've already been seeing. You would also think that staying within the adopted budget, or even below it, would be beneficial for the city. Especially whenever you, as a city council member or mayor, have direct control over the line item.
You're likely wondering what all this rambling is about. We're talking about city council travel. More specifically though, the travel reimbursements for mayor, Jaime Kinder. Now before you begin to think we're targeting her; we'll include the details of the request so you can be assured that we're not.
Now, for the information we were given. We're going to begin with 2022 reimbursements.
Let's reflect on a few things first, shall we? These requests are happening in October of 2022, and are for dates back in March through October. Next, let's remember that city council is eligible for a gasoline allowance. Whether they take it or not is up to them. The gas allowance is $200 per month.
What was the travel budget for city council for 2022?
They adopted $500 for council travel budget for 2022. Let's revisit now the mayor's requests.
The total of the request on October 17, 2022, equals $522. That request alone was over the council travel budget for 2022. The math all equals out correctly and the only thing noteworthy was that Chaz Montgomery attended the Talk Minority Action Group (TMag) event with Jaime on October 5th.
Before we get too far, we're going to touch on the mileage rate. The city utilizes the IRS recognized rate for reimbursement. What is that rate and what was it in 2022? Glad you asked.
January 1 - June 30, 2022, the rate was $0.585, then it went up to $0.625 for the remainder of 2022.
This is where it begins to get interesting. The request on October 17th was correct in all regards, amounts, miles, the mayor's attendance, and the calculations. The request for October 30th is a different story.
Let's start with the dates prior to July 1, 2022.
PELRAS on 3/16-3/18, 308 miles at "current rate" of $0.625.
Housing and neighborhood development service (HANDS) event on 6/16, 78 miles at $0.625.
Hero's breakfast on 6/19, 74 miles at $0.625.
Now for the discrepancies. March 16th date was times by $0.656, June 16th by $0.65 and June 19th also by $0.65. The rate at that time was actually $0.585, the mayor thought it was $0.625. Even with her own account of what she thought the mileage rate was, she still charged more than what she thought the current rate was.
We also verified these dates and the Hero's Breakfast was actually on May 19th, 2022, not June 19th.
So, if we go by the actual rate for January 1-June 30, 2022, we come to a total of $269.10. The mayor sent over for a total of $300.80. That's a discrepancy of $31.70. Likely she did a quick google search but didn't read some of the top headlines that stated things such as "IRS raises mileage rate for remainder of 2022."
Either way, moving on now to the rest of the second request.
7/7Jefferson event center, 82 miles at $0.625.
10/18 met Michael Outlaw, 80 miles at $0.625.
10/27 Stop the Violence event, 80 miles at $0.625.
All of the above dates she multiplied by $0.65 instead of the going rate of $0.625. When you calculate what it should have been multiplied by, you come up to $151.25. The mayor's math resulted in her requesting $157.30. A discrepancy of $6.05.
Not only that, but Chaz stated on his timesheet to the city that they met with Michael Outlaw on October 20th, which is two days after the mayor states they met. All other dates check out for mayor's attendance.
The total requested on the second reimbursement was $ 458.10. Add that to the $522 already requested and you get $980.10. The actual amount should have been $942.35, a difference of $37.75.
But wait, the budget for council travel for 2022 was $500. Looks like we went a bit over budget there, right? If the mayor got these reimbursements as requested and nobody caught the discrepancies, then it would be over budget to the tune of $480.10.
What does the 2023 council travel budget look like?
They did this report between November and December 2022 and projected the expenses to be $850. This wasn't the actual expenditures, as the year was not over yet. But what we can gather from seeing the increase in budget is that, when you go over the budget you just raise it to avoid that happening again, right? No, that doesn't sound quite right, but presumably that is what happened here.
The other odd thing is the fact that the mayor waited until the end of the year, right before budget season, to make requests for the entire year of mileage reimbursement. It's also coincidental that the mayor had a court appearance on September 22, 2022, where she paid back the $966 in food stamps she was allegedly overpaid. When things are odd and coincidental, it makes folks question the true nature of the matter at hand.
Finally, let's touch on the request for March of 2023 for the mayor to go to DC.
Let's assume that the registration fees would be taken from another part of the budget. The lodging and mileage alone are already equal to the 2023 adopted council travel budget.
Keep in mind, this is only for the mayor. She is the only one who had reimbursement requests during the period outlined on the right to know request. The mayor presumably expended the entirety of the travel budget by herself. Are some of these items beneficial to the city? It's possible. Could phone calls be made in some instances in an effort to save costs? More than likely. Especially when not all of these were speaking engagements or meetings with many individuals coming together. Some might have even involved cocktails.
In case you don't believe us that this is from an event that the mayor requested reimbursement for...
The question that needs to be asked, and that only Jim seems to be asking is "is this travel necessary?" When you consider the budget deficit we have been faced with year after year, you would think changes would need to be made. The changes we suggest would be to reduce the expenses, not increase them. However, what do we know? We aren't an elected official with access to a travel budget. Some things, such as travel and meeting with other officials, other members of council may just see as part of the job, part of serving the people and doing what is best for them. You can argue both sides of that battle, and both would potentially present valid points. The one thing we likely wouldn't argue about, is that our budget needs help and our elected officials need to pay special consideration to their actions and intentions.
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