Few expenses, little travel spending for Saskatoon mayor and council in 2020

Saskatoon’s mayor and city councillors didn’t expense much in 2020 — not when you look at what their budgets were, anyway.

According to administrative reports that are to be presented to the Governance and Priorities Committee meeting next week, in total, the mayor and councillors spent about one-fifth of all of their combined budgets.

Measures put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 affected travel for most Canadians in 2020.

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark and his office spent $3,904.59 out of a $25,000 budget. The money went to travel expenses for three meetings last February, including the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, the Big City Mayors’ Caucus, and the Western Economic Solutions Taskforce Meeting. The total for those came to $2,800.69.

Another $809.18 was for the cancelled World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco in March. An airfare credit has been applied for the amount instead.

Clark’s office, including staff, also had a $4,000 car allowance, of which $294.72 was spent by Clark himself.

As for councillors, $15,000 was available for car allowances for all 10 councillors. Of that, $2,466.86 was expensed. Councillors Zack Jeffries and Bev Dubois spent the most, with $856.91 and $770.93 respectively.

Councillors also had individual allowances for travel and training, most of which were not used either.

The total balance available came to $49,166. Of that amount, $2,463.25 was expensed by councillors Mairin Loewen, Hilary Gough and Randy Donauer — although Donauer’s expense of $493.55 for a June conference in Toronto became a WestJet travel flight credit.

A common travel and training expense account with $20,000 available for councillors saw $8,337.07 used, mainly for conferences such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting in Quebec and the SUMA convention in the first three months of the year.

A September conference in New York City which Coun. Troy Davies was scheduled to attend was rescheduled to June of this year. The $2,006.30 claimed was not used and includes a WestJet travel credit as well.

Council decided in January 2018 that yearly expenses for travel, training and car allowances would be publicly posted for mayor and council from 2017 onwards.