Xbox among items Schreyer charged to city credit card

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This article was published 11/07/2017 (2723 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An Xbox game system and Christmastime dining at Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse are two examples of the estimated 600 personal expenses totalling $57,000 that city Coun. Jason Schreyer said he charged to his city credit card and repaid.

Schreyer spoke to reporters after learning the mayor’s executive policy committee devoted much of Wednesday’s meeting to the rookie councillor’s use of his city hall credit card for personal expenses.

As the Free Press has reported, Schreyer’s credit card was suspended in October after he filed his expenses late for the fourth time in 2016. Suspension is the automatic penalty for late filings.

Schreyer, the councillor for Elmwood, East Kildonan, said he’d stopped using it in September.

On Wednesday, EPC members wanted to know details about Schreyer’s city credit card and why it wasn’t suspended sooner. His 600 personal purchases totalled $15,000 in 2015 and $42,000 in 2016. Schreyer has repaid the $57,000 total in full, deputy city clerk Marc Lemoine told the committee.

Mayor Brian Bowman said he remembers getting his city credit card when he was elected and that it was clear it was to be used for city business, not personal expenses. That’s not what Schreyer said he understood.

“I used it for everything, for anything,” Schreyer told reporters.

“I used it for personal expenses — going to the grocery store, going to a restaurant — including charges I could’ve charged to the city but chose not to… I would just pay it back like any other councillor,” he said.

Lemoine said Schreyer was repeatedly warned — both verbally and by email — that the credit card was to be used for city business only.

Lemoine said he couldn’t think of any other councillor who has racked up anywhere near that many or the amount of Schreyer’s personal expenses. If it was a major concern for the city clerk, that wasn’t apparent to Schreyer.

“My office would receive letters saying we were late in remittance and I was constantly told not to worry — we would be given a specific date by which to pay,” Schreyer said. “I always did.

“I was in keeping with the use of the charge card as I was understood to use it by the clerks and my executive assistant who is the longest-serving executive assistant at city hall — for over 20 years. So I did as I was told, totally within the rules. I was told it happened often at city hall.”

Schreyer says he feels he was singled out at the meeting of the EPC, of which he is not a member. He wouldn’t say it was unjustified, though.

“We’re to be in an era of fiscal responsibility. What can I tell you? I paid it back. I paid it back when I said I would.”

He said he used his city-issued credit card for city-related travel rather than a city travel account and that might be why his credit card expenses were so high and he was flagged for a verbal flogging.

“I believe if I had kept my travel expenses paid for through the unitemized travel account at city hall, that we would not have had this misunderstanding,” Schreyer told the Free Press.

City-related travel racked up high credit card bills but, Schreyer pointed out, he is one of the lowest-spending city councillors.

“I take this very seriously. I’m not a high-spending councillor — I’m a low-spending councillor… I never charged any alcohol, as an example.”

The city has since tightened its policy on city-issued credit card use, which Schreyer said he supported.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca