Prairie Village City Administrator’s report details costs per council trip

In response to requests from citizen Jori Nelson, Prairie Village City Administrator Quinn Bennion on Tuesday sent a memo to Mayor Ron Shaffer and the city council detailing expenses incurred by the city during council and staff trips to the National League of Cities conferences.

Click on the image above to download a .pdf of the full memo.

(Click on the image to the right to download the full report).

The most expensive trip for the city overall was the 2007 National League of Cities conference in Washington, D.C. On that trip, nine Prairie Village representatives incurred $19,057.92. The attendees were: council members David Belz, Charles Clark, Diana Ewy Sharp, Ruth Hopkins, Michael Kelly, Wayne Vennard and David Voysey, and city staff members Doug Luther and Barbara Vernon.

The most expensive trip on a per capita basis was the March 2009 trip to the NLC Congress of Cities in Washington, D.C. Four Prairie Village representatives incurred $10,466.75, or $2,616 per person. Attendees were: council members Hopkins, Ewy Sharp and Kelly, and city staff member Dennis Enslinger.

Bennion’s analyses of each trip also include breakdowns of the average meal cost billed to the city each day. The lowest was $33.50 per person per day at the 2010 NLC Congress of Cities in Denver, Colo. That meeting was attended by Hopkins, David Morrison and Enslinger.

The highest meal expenses came at the March 2008 NLC conference in Washington D.C. where the meal cost per person per day was $107.94. Ewy Sharp, Kelly, Voysey and city staff member Chris Engel attended that conference.

The report shows that only one council member, David Morrison, reimbursed expenses incurred as part of the trips. Morrison wrote the city a check for $395.90 to cover registration and other fees incurred on the November 2010 National League of Cities meeting in Denver.