Councillors Daniel Moloney and Ben Taylor have responded to questions from The Courier.

Both councillors apologised for missing calls, making contact on Saturday morning. Councillor Moloney acknowledged the expenses of councillors were a problem, both in public perception and actuality.

He said it was clear overseas travel would have to be addressed as a matter of urgency, saying the value of outcomes from the trips was tenuous.

"The new council will need to make some serious decisions about this issue," Cr Moloney told The Courier.

"It may have to be a case of no overseas travel, or sending officers who have expertise directly in regard to what is being examined, rather than councillors."

Cr Moloney said he respectfully disagreed with Cr Tillett's observation that AICD governance courses were a rort.

"To be fair, Crs Tillett and Harris come to the table with years of experience and some personal wealth. I understand these (AICD) courses are expensive, but they provide training in governance directly applicable to being a councillor.

"The compulsory councillor 'training' offered online by the Local Government Act is a joke. It takes about an hour, and even if you make a mistake you can go back and change it. We need councillors who can fulfil their roles based on experience and skills.

"People must have all the good intentions and life experience of course, but they need some qualifications as well. I'll take the opposite view from Grant. It's no good sitting in a council meeting and going on about how things used to be done in the old days. These are professional council officers we are dealing with, and they will just put their heads down, turn on their laptops and read emails if people just talk."

Cr Moloney says despite having a university degree and an MBA, he found the AICD course gave him skills he needed in dealing with complex matters in discussions with officers.

Asked if he thought it fair ratepayers should foot the bill for a development and training course, he said he understood the perception, but not all councillors had thousands of dollars at hand.

"We don't actually pay for these things ourselves, with our own cash," Cr Moloney said.

"They are logged against our expense account by the council officers. Often I'll go to a conference, and then see the cost logged against my expenses weeks later and think, 'Oh great, now I have to explain that to my constituents.' He says it's the same for the iPad pro costs; the charges just appear in their expenses.

"We don't get to keep them. We hand them back at the end of our term."

Cr Ben Taylor said in a message to The Courier the $90 car washes were an expense he would have avoided if he'd been aware of the cost, while the $9.80 dinner at Mr Le was an error in accounting, wrongly charged as a council expense, "rather than the expensive council meals we were getting." He said he was eating at Mr Le to save money on the meals.

"It's my fault for not getting that changed," Cr Taylor said.

ORIGINAL STORY

Fruit for the mayoral fruit bowl. A less-than $10 meal at a local restaurant. An iTunes account. A $300 car wash. 'Media and presentation' training costing over $2250. Australian Institute of Company Directors courses costing thousands of dollars. Membership of frequent flyers clubs. Cups of coffee. Tickets for dinners, shows and charity events.

These are a few of the expenses claimed by councillors, paid for by ratepayers, over the current term of the City of Ballarat.

The costs, revealed through a Freedom of Information Act request made by The Courier, found Ballarat councillors spent $19,845.87 and $20,514 more than their Bendigo counterparts in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

While most of the costs will be argued as legitimately incurred while on council business, some will raise eyebrows among the more frugal of Ballaratians: for their cost, their relevance to the day-to-day work of a councillor or, in some cases, for their outright stinginess.

Tabs which ratepayers picked up include:

See below for a full list of expenses

Both Grant Tillett and Cr Mark Harris, councillors with the lowest expense claims, have argued the system is in need of review.

Cr Tillett was forthright in his criticism of some expenses when he was contacted by The Courier.

His scorn for councillors taking the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) course was tempered only by his admission some councillors may feel the need to do the course because of perceived provisions in the Local Government Act 2020.

(There is no provision in the Act for any course to be required of a potential or prospective councillor.)

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE

Crs Daniel Moloney ($4,435.45), and Ben Taylor ($6,999 sic) have attended the course, while Crs Amy Johnson, Belinda Coates, Sam McIntosh and Ben Taylor charged ratepayers between $500 and $722 per annum for their AICD memberships over the term. Crs Johnson and Mcintosh were also recompensed $2,127 and $1,933.64 respectively for an update course.

"If I'm going to do a course for my personal betterment, I'm going to pay for it myself," Cr Tillett said.

"You're not going to see it as an expense. These courses, they're a rort, I'm happy to say that. It's obscene to spend money on them."

Cr Harris expressed his view in an earlier interview that expenses should go entirely.

The Courier contacted Crs Moloney and Taylor for a response and reasoning for their AICD course costs. They did not respond by deadline.

The City of Ballarat has a policy and published document clearly defining which expenses are legitimate and suitable for recompense to councillors. Its two leading principles state:

All nine councillors were recompensed over $2500 for an iPad Pro. These will be returned at the end of their term.

The Courier has attempted to extrapolate councillor spending from limited documentation within an accounting system created by the former director of business services and supplied by the City of Ballarat. It is understood other expenses may be accounted elsewhere within City of Ballarat finances.

Expenses 2016/17

Expenses 2017/18

Expenses 2018/19

Expenses 2019/20

Spending at the City of Ballarat is under the spotlight. In May the Victorian Ombudsman made damning findings about its procurement and recruitment processes. More recently serious questions have been asked about the budgeting and planning behind the Gatekeepers Cottage, fernery and Civic Hall projects, as well as its internal purchasing processes.

And what of the money claimed by councillors? In the last days of this term of council, The Courier made a Freedom of Information Act application for all expense claims by the nine councillors over the past four financial years.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY BELOW

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