Three-quarters of the way through the year, the City of Nanaimo’s chief financial officer had already exceeded his expense budget by more than 100 per cent.
The city released this week its statements of financial information for its highest-paid managers through Sept. 30, 2017.
Victor Mema, CFO, saw his 2017 expenses climb to $15,536 for the first nine months of the year. His annual expense budget is $7,500.
Mema’s travel and conference expenses were $12,693, with more than half of those expenses coming, as previously reported, at an SAP conference in Orlando in May. He had a Government Finance Officers Association of Western Canada Conference in Saskatoon in September and an Association for Finance Professionals conference in San Diego in October.
Mema noted that other City of Nanaimo staff members came in well under budget as far as travel and conference expenses.
“The budget for travel is not exceeded in terms of the pool of money available for all,” he said. “That’s how we look at all our budgets, whether it’s travel or personal or whatever.”
He was asked whether the city’s current CFO expense budget is sufficient, and said that’s relative.
“Some CFOs just manage finance, some CFOs manage finance plus other things,” he said. “I manage finance, I manage IT, I’m the deputy city manager … It’s driven by what the underlying responsibilities are for that position.”RELATED: Expense reports come to city council table
Tracy Samra, chief administrative officer, had the next-highest expenses at $5,947 for three quarters of the year, well under her $19,530 budget. Her highest expenses were $3,134 in extended health benefits.
Karen Fry, fire chief, had expenses of $5,648, below her budget of $6,017. She expensed $5,332 for travel and conferences during the first three quarters of 2017.
Some other employees and their expenses through Sept. 30: Dale Lindsay, director of community development, $4,160; Kim Fowler, former chief sustainability officer, $3,462; Brad McRae, former chief operations officer, $1,801.
Richard Harding, parks and rec director, expensed $75 and Philip Cooper, former communications director, expensed $97.
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