Wyndham councillors and staff have claimed more than $83,000 in interstate trips over the past two years.
The council’s register, which details all interstate and overseas trips by councillors and officers, reveals 23 travel claims were made between June 5, 2014, and May 7, 2015, totalling $35,204.
In 2013-14, staff and councillors spent $48,481.
Claims can be lodged for any flights, registrations at conferences, accommodation, parking, taxi vouchers and other expenses relating to council-approved trips.
Councillors and staff must disclose all overseas and interstate travel except for interstate travel by land of less than three days.
All travel is approved by either chief executive Kerry Thompson or a council director.
Travel expense totals come as frustrated Wyndham residents are calling on the council to spend more on local roads and infrastructure.
In the past year, most travel claims were made to attend and present at national conferences or award ceremonies.
The most expensive individual claim was $2853 by financial services manager Binda Gokhale, who flew to Sydney in March to attend the Local Government Financial Sustainability conference.
The council also approved $10,737 for chief executive Kerry Thompson and councillors Glenn Goodfellow, Heather Marcus and Bob Fairclough to attend the Australian Local Government Association’s (ALGA) National Assembly of Local Government in Canberra.
Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action climate adaption officer Heather McClaren flew to the Gold Coast to attend the National Climate Change Adaption Research Facility annual conference, while WAGA co-ordinator Fran McDonald went to Sydney last August for the Government and Sustainability conference.
In February this year, the council forked out $3234 for two of its staff to attend the Australian Library and Information Association Online conference.
Other claims include $1963 for project manager Jonathan Morris to attend an Information Technology in Aged Care conference in Hobart and $1958 for economic development manager Daryl Wilson to attend the Economic Development Australia conference in Darwin.
Ms Thompson said the council determined which events and conferences were worth attending based on their benefits to Wyndham, and said the ALGA conference was “very important” for council-related policy and government relations.
“The ALGA National Assembly of Local Government was attended by four representatives and this enabled meetings to occur with federal government ministers, shadow ministers, and key government staff.
“Meetings are also held at the same time with the National Growth Areas Alliance.”
In two instances, Star Weekly noted marked disparities in the amount claimed by council staff attending the same event. In one case, sustainable development director Dean Rochfort and community development director Kelly Grigsby both attended the National Growth Areas Alliance National Congress in Adelaide last October. Mr Rochfort claimed $2299 in travel expenses while Ms Grigby claimed $1667.
Ms Thompson said in both cases, the differences related to which person incurred the most shared costs.
“Sharing a car to the airport will result in one person paying for the parking or a taxi charge or car hire fee for four people, being on one person’s receipt,” she said. “It is important to note that costs allocated are based on credit card amounts or receipts returned, rather than being aggregated out across people who attended.”
