Augusta commissioners plan to double travel spending this year
Augusta commissioners can do more traveling at taxpayers’ expense this year after on Tuesday voting to increase their travel budget to $7,500 each.
Multiplied by 10, the increase amounts to more than twice what members spent on travel and training last year, when some events were canceled due to COVID-19.
“When you stop and think about what is required to run a billion-dollar government, and you come off the street doing whatever it is that you did, to think that you can run a government efficiently is ridiculous,” said interim commissioner Alvin Mason, who is pursuing another term in May.
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Mason said during his prior two terms ending in 2014 he learned things at conferences that helped him right Augusta’s troubled path developing a convention center, the Augusta Marriott at the Convention Center and its associated parking garage. “We saved you millions of dollars of inequities that were going on.”
The 10-member commission, not the mayor, is saddled with oversight of the city budget, which swelled to more than $1 billion this year. The city administrator and department heads report directly to the commission.
Commissioners John Clarke, Catherine Smith McKnight and Dennis Williams were the only members opposed. Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Williams, who called for the increase, said Clarke and McKnight had asked him to do it. Introducing the measure at an earlier meeting, Williams said the increase would allow each commissioner to attend multiple state- and national-level conferences each year.
McKnight said she supported the increase in a committee meeting last week but had changed her mind. “I’m not going to sit there and think about Catherine when I’m supposed to be thinking about the citizens, who don’t see it that way,” she said. Clarke made an unsuccessful motion to deny the increase.
As a consolidated city and county, Augusta opts to double up on conferences held by city and county associations, while some consolidated governments pick one. At annual conferences in Savannah, commissioners get to mix and mingle with the heads of the state’s lesser-populated cities and counties, as well as members from Columbus and Atlanta.
The annual dues that allow the commission to attend Association County Commissioners of Georgia conferences were $19,803 last year, while for the city group, Georgia Municipal Association, dues paid were $37,952, according to city budget documents. Add in a combined $16,118 for the National League of Cities and National Association of Counties brings membership dues to $74,574.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Augusta GA commission votes to increase its travel budget
