{"id":1644,"date":"2013-04-23T15:40:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T19:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=1644"},"modified":"2013-05-14T17:31:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T21:31:00","slug":"three-solutions-for-expense-dumpster-diving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/three-solutions-for-expense-dumpster-diving\/","title":{"rendered":"Three solutions for expense \u201cdumpster diving\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Re: Politics as Usual, April 16, 2013)<\/p>\n

The electioneering silly season doesn\u2019t begin in eight months, for the simple reason that it never actually ended.<\/p>\n

Expense account \u201cdumpster diving\u201d in the hopes of discovering one\u2019s rival has attempted to claim a private island or liposuction for their over-indulged hamster is simply one of the many forms of low-brow political muck-raking.<\/p>\n

You know, idle hands, devil\u2019s workshop and all that.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if council really was interested in addressing expense account issues and had a free afternoon to spare, the solutions, in my opinion at least, are quite simple.<\/p>\n

1. Mayor and Councillors don\u2019t need an expense account. Town hall has all the office supplies they need. What else do they need expense money for?<\/p>\n

2. Expense money is taxpayer money \u2013 our money \u2013 meant to help Councillors do a better job of serving us. It is not bonus salary or \u201cmad money\u201d. It is not a \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d fund. It is not meant to buy meals and drinks for other people. Nor is it meant to be spent on tickets, charitable donations and gala dinners. I\u2019ll decide what charities I want to support and events I want to attend. Councillors can attend galas on their own dime or the organizers can comp their tickets if they are so keen to have them attend.<\/p>\n

3. Set policy on which meetings, conferences or training sessions are appropriate to participate in. Set per diems such as $20 for a local (GTA) day-long session or $50 for extended out of town events.
\nYou attend, you get the per diem and the town staff arranges and pays for conference fees, travel and hotels. Spend however much you want on whatever you want. Buy wine and golf clubs for all of your new friends. We don\u2019t care and we don\u2019t need to see the receipts either because you\u2019ll only be getting the per diem anyway. <\/p>\n

Barry Hall
\nAurora<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Re: Politics as Usual, April 16, 2013) The electioneering silly season doesn\u2019t begin in eight months, for the simple reason that it never actually ended. Expense account \u201cdumpster diving\u201d in the hopes of discovering one\u2019s rival has attempted to claim a private island or liposuction for their over-indulged hamster is simply one of the many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-qw","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-22 04:36:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}