Cost of Byelection

How much is the by-election going to cost?

Depends who you talk to.

A couple of weeks back, the city's director of finance Bob Bishop, tabled financial documents at a city council meeting indicating the cost of the election to be $233,314. In a Telegram article dated Wednesday, May 28, the city clerk, Neil Martin is quoted as saying the cost will be closer to $350,000 - $400,000.

Why the discrepancy?

According to Martin, it is to do with the fact that Bishop did not include costs such as paying returning officers and printing special ballots. Of course this leads to the obvious question - why not?

Martin claims part of this is because the finance department saw a figure of approximately $35,000 spent for the election as of March 31 and projected the costs for an annual basis. Besides being mathematically incorrect (total would be $140,000 based on this formula), the election is not something that should be calculated in this manner.

This is a one-time event. Costs should be known. Obviously Martin was able to project the costs earlier in the year. So why did Martin not provide this figure to Bishop to enable the correct figure to appear in financial documents? Or did he?

The Telegram article gives the impression that the city clerk and director of finance do not inform each other. Martin is able to quote other expenses that are not included in the finance figures such as electronic scanning of the ballots and mailing costs.

So where did the finance department get their figure from?

Unfortunately this example places the credibility of the tabled financial reports into question. Are there other examples where the figures aren't right or is this the only one?

An explanation from both senior managers is required to clarify the costing of the by-election