Spending policy in place for mayor’s office

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This article was published 25/01/2017 (2960 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The mayor’s office now has a spending policy, which Brian Bowman called the ‘right thing to do’, but he was hard pressed to explain its provisions and appeared confused as to its origins.

The existence of the new policy was disclosed on the floor of council during Wednesday’s meeting by Coun. Ross Eadie, who had pestered the mayor at previous meetings about why his office and the administration had not complied with a council directive from June 2014 to develop such a policy.

When questioned repeatedly by reporters following the council meeting, Bowman could not cite any provision of the new policy, referred reporters to the clerk’s office, and claimed the policy came into being at his own initiative.

“You don’t need direction to do what I think is the right thing to do,” Bowman told reporters. “I did enact changing policy on expenditures without the need for council direction. It’s the right thing to do.”

Bowman said he had been working on the new policy with the city clerk’s office for the past year. However, when Eadie asked him at the September council meeting about the policy and council’s 2014 directive, Bowman’s answer appeared to indicate he wasn’t aware of the need to develop the spending policy.

“In terms of specific policy that the councillor’s requesting, I’d be more than happy to sit down with him to seek greater clarity as well as to see what it is exactly he’s seeking and look forward to those discussions,” Bowman told Eadie.

Bowman’s responses to questions about the new policy elicited surprise and chuckles from Eadie.

“It’s actually quite good… a very thorough document,” Eadie (Mynarksi) told the Free Press, adding however he is puzzled that Bowman had forgotten he had prodded him about producing the report several times.

“When I asked him in September where the policy was, he acted like he didn’t know anything about it,” Eadie said. “Now he’s taking credit for it – really?”

Eadie said he had received an email from Bowman in late December, stating the policy was now in place. Eadie said that since the creation of the policy was as a result of a council directive, the policy should have been brought back for council’s consideration or to be reviewed by council’s governance committee.

Bowman told reporters the policy mirrors a similar policy that governs councillors’ ward allowance spending but couldn’t say if there were any provisions that were written specifically for his office, or if the policy provisions differed in any way from the rules governing councillors. Bowman said he expects the policy to remain in effect for all mayors going forward.

In an email to all councillors on Dec. 30, Bowman announced the policy was in place and highlighted several provisions, including: The mayor’s office expenditures will be subject to an annual audit; and, an annual report of the audited expenditures will be reported and submitted to the Audit Committee (which consists members of the executive policy committee); and the expenditures will be posted on-line (which has been the practise of Bowman’s office).

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

MayorOffice+Expenditure+Policy