No public reveal for MD councillor expenses

Chris Davis - At their August 22 regular meeting, MD of Pincher Creek Councillor Quentin Stevick moved that all 2016 reimbursable expenditures for each individual councillor be made publicly available.  Council decided to postpone the matter until the next council meeting in order to allow administration time to gather relevant information.  That next meeting of council was further postponed due to the Kenow fire crisis.  On September 26 council discussed the matter again.


Councillor Terry Yagos said such disclosures will be required under the revamped provincial Municipal Government Act.  He said preparing expenditure reports will place an extra workload on the MD's administration, and said staff should have time to prepare for dealing with them before proceeding.  Councillor Fred Schoening said the expensing of meals was particularly difficult to calculate on an individual basis, and suggested a friendly amendment to Stevick's motion that would have excepted meal expenses from the reporting process.  Stevick agreed to the amendment.  Reeve Hammond said that since the whole issue will be mandated next year he was not in favour of MD staff spending their time on it at this time.

Stevick requested a recorded vote.  His motion was defeated, with Reeve Hammond and councillors Marchuck and Yagos opposed.  Stevick and Schoening voted in favour of the motion.