By Brendan Rees
A Casey councillor has cost ratepayers nearly $31,000 in expenses on top of his annual $98,727 mayoral salary.
Former mayor Sam Aziz’s expenses during the 2016-’17 financial year included more than $6000 in training and education, about $9000 on IT and communications, and more than $15,635 on a car and travel.
The second most expensive councillor was Rosalie Crestani who claimed $8723, followed by Cr Wayne Smith ($7980).
Cr Aziz defended his expense bill, saying “It was actually costing me more money to use my own car.
“With my car I would be paying my own fuel, maintenance, registration, insurance, the lease on the car – the whole lot but I would get an allowance.
“It would not have cost the organisation any more had I used their car.”
Cr Aziz said he paid extra $480 a month out of his “own pocket” to run his own car – which he says was not claimed.
“My car did 65,000 kilometres in one year so it’s not just the running costs, but also the depreciation on the vehicle and none of that was factored in.”
He said the rest of his travel expenses were related to trips to China “where we’ve actually secured two economic partnerships agreements. I make no apologies for that.”
When asked about his expenses in IT, Cr Aziz said: “How else can I work without having a computer? I get four or five emails per day from residents that want things done in terms of council services.“
“Do I say to people ‘Sorry, so I can avoid appearing in the Herald Sun, please send me a note on a leg of a pigeon and make sure it lands at Bunjil Place so we’re not costing the ratepayer?’ It’s just absurd.”
Cr Rex Flannery, who claimed only $529 on phone expenses, said: “I don’t believe in wasting money and I don’t believe we should be in council to spend ratepayers’ money on things that are not relevant.”
When asked about Cr Aziz’s expense claims, Cr Flannery said: “I’ll let his claims speak for itself. One thing I’ve learnt is not to get into mudslinging over the councillors.”
Ratepayers Victoria vice-president Frank Sullivan said councils needed to be more accountable, with credit card spending to be monitored by the Auditor-General every three months.
“It’s our money – ratepayers’ money and we’ve had massive rate increases at the moment and we’re very concerned about the accountability of the so-called rate-capping,” he said.
An audit of council’s financial statements and performance statement was conducted by the Victorian Auditor-General’s audit service provider, RSM for the 2016-’17 year.
Cr Aziz says he will not put his hand up to for the mayoral election at the end of this year.
