Is $12,000 an absurd request for this? In a proper business environment each expense would require documentation: a form completed with the nature of the expense and the requisite receipts. That form, along with copies of receipts/invoices, is usually forwarded to a bean counter for payment. Said bean counter reviews the expenditures to see they are reasonable (and authorized) and processes it for payment.
Once again, big brother has a peculiar view of transparency. Someone else needs to lose their job over this.
Once again, big brother has a peculiar view of transparency. Someone else needs to lose their job over this.
The University College of the North recently asked the Opposition Tories to pay more than $12,000 to receive a breakdown of its travel and hospitality costs, prompting Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen to speculate whether the “outrageous” estimate is deliberately meant to hinder their efforts.
“We’re not suggesting anything untoward is going on, but obviously red flags go up when people are throwing hurdles into your way,” McFadyen said. “It’s obviously an outrageous response to our request.”
The Tories filed a request in March under freedom of information legislation, asking for a detailed breakdown of the roughly $1.5 million in travel and hospitality costs the northern institution claimed in its latest annual report.
The UCN said it would take about 320 hours of work to prepare the breakdown. Based on the fee schedule outlined in the law, that would cost $12,175.
Sandra Muilenburg, chief financial officer at UCN, said the estimate is correct, as generating a name, dollar amount and explanation for every expense would require manually going through about 500 file folders and thousands of vendor files.
Having to cover all of northern Manitoba and regularly travel to Winnipeg makes using a filing system like the one UCN uses necessary, she said.
“There are a lot of files involved when you have that kind of area to cover,” said Muilenburg.
Culture Minister Flor Marcelino, who oversees Manitoba’s freedom of information laws, acknowledged $12,000 is a lot of money but said it doesn’t seem unreasonable if the request involves “voluminous documents.” The legislation allows anyone with a complaint about costs to appeal to the ombudsman, she said.
Fred Vallance-Jones, assistant professor of journalism at University of King’s College in Halifax and an expert in freedom of information requests, said government bodies don’t have to request exorbitant fees — which he said are sometimes legitimate expenses and sometimes attempts to stymie requests.
Government bodies always have the option of waiving fees if they think the information is in the public interest, or of changing their systems to better accommodate such requests.
“People have been asking for travel expenses for decades. These institutions should know these requests will come and almost have it ready to go on the shelf,” he said.
paul.turenne@sunmedia.ca
