LAC LA BICHE - At the same time that Lac La Biche County councillors are looking for ways to find efficiencies, reduce expenses, and explore staffing and service levels during their continuing budget discussions, there's one expense they might be increasing — their own.
In the midst of ongoing budget discussions, special meetings and presentations — all to chart the municipality's best financial path for 2023 — councillors say they might need to pay themselves more money to travel that path.
Higher fuel and food prices affect council
To combat higher fuel costs and general increases in expenses, councillors have suggested they should be able to claim more when they go to conferences and meetings. During the current round of budget talks, councillors discussed an increase in their per-kilometre mileage reimbursements from 52 cents a kilometre to 61. Some are also concerned that increasing costs in the hospitality industry have made it a challenge to stay within their current $65 a day meal allowances at conferences and meetings.
Based on their most recently approved expense claims for the month of October, all councillors, with the exception of Mayor Paul Reutov, combined for more than 12,000 kilometres of travel to two different conferences in Jasper over the month. Each council member took their own vehicle on each 1,100 kilometre round-trip to Jasper. The current allowable mileage claim of 52 cents per kilometre translates into about $6,800 in reimbursement to the councillors for just those two conference. If a new rate of 61 cents was approved, the same trips would have amounted to $7,800.
According to the approved expense claims, five councillors attended a recycling awareness conference at the Jasper Park Lodge in mid October. Seven attended a recreation and parks conference at the same resort later in the month, and four of the nine council members attended both conferences. An additional overnight conference for physician retention and recruitment in Drayton Valley in early of October drew three council members, each driving their own vehicles for the 760 kilometre round-trip. Over the course of the month, with travel to other events, at least two of the council members put in excess of 3,000 kilometres on their vehicles for council business.
Councillor Colette Borgun presented the idea to raise the travel rate, saying she is seeing a lot more out of pocket expense in her council role. She actually got the idea about raising the mileage expenses, she said, while attending recent conferences and speaking to other elected officials.
"When we were at conferences, quite a few of our neighbouring municipalities were talking about increasing their mileage for travel for council," she said.
An average month for each council member sees them claim about 1,100 kilometres in council-related travel.
Group travel
Councillor John Mondal, who managed to attended both conferences in Jasper as well as the Drayton Valley conference, realizes the increase in mileage rates translates into more expense on taxpayer dollars. He would prefer to reduce those costs, and also reduce the wear and tear on his own vehicle that has been putting on all those kilometres. He would like to see council members have access to a municipal vehicle to carry groups to conferences.
"John, will you take the 'fun bus'?"
- Lac La Biche County Mayor Paul Reutov joking with councillor John Mondal about travelling on a municipal vehicle.
"If I want to go to a convention or conference and I don't want to take my vehicle, would I be able to get a vehicle from the County, so I don't get paid mileage, so the fuel alone can be it?" Mondal asked municipal administrators at a recent budget meeting. "Because when I go to the conferences, I've seen other municipalities bring their own (municipal vehicle). If it is possible, it needs to be done — and if not, why."
Lac La Biche County CAO Dan Small said it's a question he has not been asked before. He said that as a practice, it's relatively rare that a council would take county vehicles.
"But if there is an interest in council to car pool in a county vehicle, I will check it out," he said.
Mayor Reutov, who didn't attend any of the three conferences, claimed 1,936 kilometres of travel in October. He doesn't like the idea of shared transit, calling it a "fun bus".
"John, will you take the 'fun bus'? he asked councillor Mondal, smirking.
Mondal said he would — if it saved his own vehicle and taxpayers' money.
"I will take it. At the end of the day, I'm going to save kilometres on my vehicle. and make sure my vehicles run longer. This last year, I've attended many conferences and conventions, and I've put on ... lots of kilomteres, so if I save those, absolutely... and it saves money to the County as well, because it is 52 cents a kilometre which is being paid. I think I would like to save it. I'll save money that way. It's a small saving. But at the end of the day, small, small makes it big."
If a mileage rate is increased, it would apply to council and staff and committee members of the municipality travelling on corporate business. The current mileage rate paid to provincial civil servants sits at 50.5 cents per kilometre.
Small said the 52 cent rate in Lac La Biche County has not been increased since he was hired a decade ago.
He said municipal administrators have also been planning to re-examine the mileage rate.
"Everything else has gone up ... gas, insurance, fixed costs of a vehicle have changed over the last 10-plus years ... and that's a thing we were going to look at internally, after the budget is over, and bring some recommendations," the chief administrator said.
Eating up expenses
Before the report on the mileage rates was approved, councillor Sterling Johnson asked about also increasing the current $65 a day meal allowances for council. Johnson attended both the recycling and parks conferences at the Jasper Park Lodge. Even though both conferences offered sponsored breakfasts, snacks, lunches and banquet dinners on active event days, he said those kinds of location have on-site restaurants and amenities that can be quite expense if they are utilized — and even more so with the added inflation and rising costs that all Canadians are experiencing.
"Do we want to include anything for meals?... Because I know there's been a lot of grumbling about meal costs at conventions, because most of them are held at fancier places," he asked prior to the vote on the mileage report.
Council agreed to explore an increase in meal allowances and subsistence rates, as well as mileage rates, with one formal motion.The motion was approved, and a report is expected in the new year.
Another motion
A further motion to explore the feasibility of using a shared vehicle for council business or conference attendance was also approved. That report, including a comparison study from other Alberta municipalities, will also be returning in the new year.
If the municipality's mileage rate is increased, it would apply to council and staff and committee members of the municipality travelling on corporate business. The current mileage rate paid to provincial civil servants sits at 50.5 cents per kilometre.
According to the 2023 Budget document that Lac La Biche County councillors are currently working through, total expenses for the nine-member council are projected to be $1.027 million in 2023, a $14,000 increase over the 2022 budget. In recent budget discussion, municipal finance department officials say that council expenses account for approximately $55 of the $2,600 average annual taxes paid by a Lac La Biche County ratepayer. The municipality's public works department, by comparison, is said to account for $955 of that annual average tax levy.
