Birmingham city leaders are working to pass the budget for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
We asked readers to send us our questions about city finances and the budget through a question asking service called Hearken. Jimmy Sutton submitted this question:
“How much is budgeted for travel and expense account reimbursement for city council members, department heads and the mayor?”
Each councilor gets $13,000 to spend on travel and $6,000 to spend on instruction and training each fiscal year. If councilors don’t spend all of their travel and instruction and training funds, the money essentially disappears. It does not roll over to the next fiscal year. The current fiscal year ends on June 30.
Mayor Randall Woodfin’s proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 includes $142,000 for travel expenses for the city council’s office and $166,000 for mayor’s office travel. In 2018, the mayor’s office spent $52,659 on travel, or less than 1 percent of the mayor’s office’s $9.4 million budget. The same year, the city council spent $97,705--about 2 percent of the council’s $3.6 million budget.
Most city departments have a line item for travel expenses, which can be found in the mayor’s proposed budget. Click here to read it.
Birmingham city councilors spent money traveling to conferences in Washington D.C., meet with sports officials across the southeast, attend a sustainability conference in Germany, the Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference and the NUSA conference in Palm Springs, California with leaders in their neighborhoods.
Not every city-paid trip taken by councilors came from city councilor’s travel budgets. One trip, which sent City Council Administrator Cheryl Kidd and District 8 councilor Steven Hoyt to Australia for 10 days to attend the Sport Accord 2019 Summit in Queensland, Australia, was paid from the mayor’s sports and tourism development line item after being approved as a “consent” (non-discussion item) by the council.
Kidd said she attended Sport Accord because she acts as a liaison between the city council and the Birmingham Organizing Committee for the World Games.
“We were there basically playing a part of the venue (the host city) for the World Games,” Kidd said.
The mayor’s line item for sports and tourism development is not included in the mayor’s proposed budget for the new fiscal year.
Advance funding for this trip for Hoyt and Kidd was approved by the council on April 16. The council approved $8,930.07 each for Kidd and Hoyt to spend on the trip. All advance funding has to be approved by a vote from the city council during its weekly meetings. If funding is not approved in advance, employees can submit receipts to be reimbursed for travel.
District 4 Councilor William Parker has spent the most from his travel account so far this year, spending $15,644.28, according to council spending records provided by the council’s office.
Most of Parker’s listed travel is related to sporting event recruitment trips. Parker has been working to bring games and other events to Legion Field.
“It’s no secret we’ve been aggressive in pursuing opportunities for Legion Field and for Birmingham,” Parker said. He sees the travel spending as an investment into the city and to sports and event tourism, which generates revenue for the city.
“The goal to bring in more business to the city of Birmingham and I think we’re on track for that,” he said.
District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt has spent $14,840.67 on travel this year. Both Hoyt and Parker have spent more than the allotted $13,000 for travel.
All of Hoyt’s spending went to three conferences: the National League of Cities Conference in Washington, D.C., the Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C. and the Neighborhoods USA (NUSA) conference in Palm Springs, California.
District 2 councilor Hunter Williams has spent none of his $13,000. He says he’s paid for all travel out of his own pocket this year. He plans to transfer funds from his travel fund to his Public Improvements fund, which is part of the city’s capital budget, to fund projects in his district.
“All this travel adds up. A trip here and a trip there--it adds up to large sums of money,” Williams said. “I think it’s our responsibility as elected officials and department heads and all city employees is to really watch how we spend taxpayer dollars in terms of travel and make sure what we’re traveling for benefits the taxpayer just as much or more (than the amount spent).”
Other councilors, including Council President Valerie Abbott, transferred money from her travel spending account to pay for other expenditures. On Aug. 15, 2018, she transferred $378 from her travel account to pay for computer software. She made a similar transfer on Aug. 17, 2018, of $2,739 to pay for furniture.
Kidd said these transfers are often done as a means to keep the unspent travel money. If it’s not spent, it goes away. She said some councilors plan to transfer any remaining funds from the travel spending accounts to public improvement accounts this year.
City councilors also paid for neighborhood leaders to attend the Neighborhoods USA (NUSA) conference in Palm Springs, California, in May. District 6 councilor Crystal Smitherman, District 7 councilor Wardine Alexander, District 9 councilor John Hilliard and Hoyt all used some of their travel and instruction and training funds to pay for conference fees and travel to the NUSA conference for neighborhood leaders.
Woodfin has spent just over $10,600 from city funds for travel since he was elected in November 2017, according to travel records posted on the city website. Each month, the mayor’s office uploads documents showing city-funded travel expenditures for the previous month. Click here to view Woodfin’s travel records.
The city council has not yet approved the budget for the next fiscal year, which will begin on July 1. If the budget is not approved before July 1, the city will continue operating based on last year’s budget.
Do you have more questions about city finances? Submit them through this link here or fill out the form below.