Leanne Mitchell, supervisor of cost accounting, presented what council had spent on renumeration and expenses at the last council meeting, comparing overall costs to fund council in 2021 to those costs in 2022.

In her report, Mitchell detailed a $20,000 increase in council costs one year over the next with councillors billing the city more for mileage due to a return to in-person meetings, conference and seminar attendance that had largely all been cancelled by COVID-19 in 2021, and other eligible expenses generated by spending more time at city hall than at their home offices.

In her notes attached to the report, Mitchell said that the conference and seminar column included not only reimbursement for in-person attendance of conferences “but meals, accommodations, taxi fares etc. for all conferences and training attended by members. This (line item) also includes expenses for town hall meetings.”

The report was a little more complex this year because of the election of a new council. The report had to reflect costs incurred by the first ten and a half months of the old council led by Andy Letham, and the first six weeks of the new council presided over by Doug Elmslie.

In 2021, the last full year of the Letham mandate, council costs included $510,000 for wages, $6700 for mileage, only $610 for conferences and $870 in other eligible expenses for a total of $517,000.

The combined numbers for 2022 featured $512,000 for wages, $9400 for mileage, $14,000 for conferences and seminars and $1600 for other eligible expenses producing a total bill of $537,000.

Former councillors Pat O’Reilly and Kathleen Seymour-Fagan had the highest expense sub-totals in 2022, out billing all other members including the mayor. Former Councillor Andrew Veale submitted no bills for expenses in 2022.

The two best compensated members of council in 2022 were Letham, who took home in wages and reimbursed expenses $106,000, while Elmslie, who acted as deputy-mayor, received $49,000.