City Government
Boise City Travel Expenses Soar 27%
March 8, 2013 
The Daily Paper posted a story today which said an internal audit caught some small issues regarding department travel.
Most of the things mentioned by auditor Steve Rehn dealt with late reports and lack of receipts. The big issue that jumped out at the GUARDIAN was a single year jump from $471,300 for travel in 2011 to $600,000 in 2012–26.9%.
While there is no doubt Rehn’s efforts keep city employees in line (only $13 off from what was spent vs owed), the real issue for councilors to look at is WHY the huge jump.
In 2002 taxpayers funded $872,800 in travel. A policy of having the council approve all out of state travel in advance was instituted after those abuses of the Brent Coles administration. However, we can’t recall the council EVER denying travel requests to the mayor or other officials.
According to the Statesman, “No member of the City Council has requested formal action in response to the audit report. So far, managers across city departments have shown they’re taking it seriously, council President Maryanne Jordan said.”
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Mar 8, 2013, 9:45 am
How do the travel total stack up with other cities, ACHD and other agencies? That is a lot of tax dollars! What is all this travel for? Taxpayer funded vacations? Can you get us details on where the elected officials are going and how much each is spending at Boise City?
Mar 8, 2013, 10:49 am
Lack of receipts? Where I work you are required to pay for travel out of your pocket and then submit your receipts for reimbursement. Maybe the city should try that….
Mar 8, 2013, 11:41 am
Hey Boise residents, Sounds like berry and moochelle obamma, shrillary clinton, and john kerry-heinz, et.al. on a local scale.
Just be glad that Beiter doesn’t control a fleet of AF/Marine Ones and Twos, support airplanes, multi- million dollar busses, limos and golf carts, etc. etc.
He would waste so much money flapping aimlessly around that he might have to exclude citizens from touring their own property, Oh wait, he already locked down the Train Depot to save money, , ,
Mar 8, 2013, 12:49 pm
$600,000 in travel!!! That is ridiculous! There is NO reason Boise City elected officials should be traveling out of state! Who is traveling, where are they going and why? They just gave themselves big fat raises and now going on taxpayer-funded boondoggles?
Mar 8, 2013, 1:33 pm
Aside from the various pointed issues mentioned so far by commenters, there is also the bureaucratic rule: work expands to fill the slots allocated and inversely they expand to provide for more workers — therefore finances continually expand to pay for it all.
This phenom. often accompanies the Peter Principle.
Mar 8, 2013, 11:29 pm
Just to clarify, the $600k spent on travel and training was for the entire City of Boise employees, not just the Mayor’s office. Police, fire, mayor’s office, ect are all included in the $600k number.
EDITOR NOTE–We understood and same was true for previous administrations. Thanks.