Rochester — A member asked why the Rochester City Council’s decision to divide the $24,600 travel and training budget equally among its seven members.
“I don’t understand why it’s even on the agenda,” said City Councilman Molly Dennis, adding that city officials pay about $3,500 per council member for travel, accommodation and program costs related to ongoing training. He added that he proposed to divide the
She said two city council members, Nick Campion and Sean Palmer, did not ask for city funding for this year’s training.
“As someone who believes education is very important and has attended these conferences, I attended both the National League of Cities conference and the League of Minnesota Cities conference in Duluth. Who wants to attend? ‘ said Dennis.
She said the goal should be to send people to trainings and conferences, compare insights with other elected officials, and bring new ideas to the city.
“You can’t find all the solutions in this little cocoon without reaching out and connecting,” she said.
“When I attend these meetings, I’ve built relationships across the state and country,” she added.
Campion was present at his last meeting as a city councilor, but the $3,500 allocated per city councilman was not enough to cover the cost of attending the two annual National League of Cities meetings. said enough.
“I have attended them historically,” he said. “I’ve done it myself. You can go to both his NLC conferences if you book a hotel that’s not on the[convention’s]block.”
Additionally, he said he has seen former city councilors using an even or greater percentage of the training budget.
Council member Patrick Keane also pointed out that equitable use of training funds is not a new problem, even if it is a new approach.
“We have had situations over the last decade where certain people ended up using a large portion of some of these budgets. It’s one method that has been discussed,” he said.
Council President Brooke Carlson also said there must be equity when it comes to spending the council’s training funds, pointing to the opportunity to train online at low cost and connect with other leaders.
“We know your spending is high, and we’re trying to find ways for each of us to manage and fair our chances of going to the conferences we want to go to.” she told Denise.
The 15-minute discussion was controversial, as Carlson shut out Dennis for trying to share the views of past council members.
“If we see that this process isn’t working for us this year, we can think about what might work next year instead,” she added.
Dennis later expressed concern about the division of positions on the Council and “petty politics”, but failed to rally support against the proposed division, and the Council decided to approve an equal distribution of travel funds. voted 6 to 1.
“I feel like this is another step in the wrong direction,” she said, pointing to a previous council decision not to increase the overall training budget for 2023.
what happened: The Rochester City Council has decided to allocate approximately $24,600 evenly for 2023 travel and training costs.
Why this matters: Council member Molly Dennis said the fact that some members are unwilling to attend meetings could leave funds unused, leading to missed opportunities.
What’s next: Each Council member has approximately $3,500 in training and travel budgets for 2023 and may request additional funding as needed.
