Wonderful attitude for an elected official........Vaughan considers $2.5 million to be petty cash, nickels and dimes, but if you can't manage the nickels and dimes why should people expect you to be able to handle the $$$$$.
Frugal City Councillors Want Probe Into Budget Spending
How would you feel if someone spent your hard earned tax money on a bunny suit, or a cappuccino maker?
What if it was spent on a bar tab, or Leaf tickets, or a limo ride?
Well you can forget the 'what ifs' because someone is spending your tax money on the aforementioned items and services, and you voted for them.
The perceived misspending by some Toronto city councillors came to light in a published report that pointed out some of the more blatant purchases.
Some notable cases include Councillor Pam McConnell, who spent $1700 on Christmas cards and Karen Stintz, who billed taxpayers $100 for wine. Sandra Bussin's the one who dropped $200 on a bunny costume.
Stintz has since come to recognize that her behaviour was inappropriate.
"I do appreciate the fact that people don't think that's a good use of taxpayer dollars, so I have repaid it," she said.
But that's not enough to appease notoriously frugal councillors Rob Ford and Doug Holyday, who now want random audits on the spending of the reps' $53,000 office budgets.
Their request has repeatedly been turned down by David Miller, but now the mayor has asked for a report on how to improve the office budget policy. "There is clearly some room for improvement," he said in a statement.
Ford and Holyday, who are at the bottom of the spending list, say there's very little monitoring and some expense sheets raise alarms. They also claim the office budgets are used as re-election slush funds.
Councillor Adam Vaughan has came under fire for purchasing a $900 painting and a cappuccino maker that came with a bill of $280.
Although he was quoted as saying they were two of his most 'ridiculous expenditures', he still defended them in a heated confrontation with CityOnline Host Ann Rohmer.
"We're allotted $53,000 to run our offices. And that includes putting furniture on the floor, telephones on the desk, computers on the desk and sometimes art on the wall.
"The reality is we have rules and if you live within those rules and you make some discretionary expenditures, I expect to answer for it. I'm not saying I won't. But the reality is that there's a lot of things councillors do that never show up on the expense accounts."
That reality is becoming all too clear and with the city crying poor and adding a new land transfer tax and new vehicle registration tax, the preceived frivolous spending is irking the public.
Add to that the recent survey which revealed that one in three Toronto families are living in poverty, and it appears that City Hall has something to answer for.
Vaughan, for one, is ready to accept the criticism.
"If you don't like the answer, don't elect me next time," he said. "At the same time, we have an eight-and-a-half billion dollar budget which has to be managed and we're managing it.
"There are a lot of people who would rather count the nickels and dimes and embarrass politicians than deal with (the real issues)."
Councillor Rob Ford tracks councillors expenses. Here's a look at his findings.
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