The entire trip cost $๐๐,๐๐๐.๐๐.
It included Mayor Brandon Hembree, City Council Members Taylor Anderson, Marc Cohen, Jenn Thatcher, and Mason Roszel. (Current Council Member Alvin Hicks was not yet in office at the time of the retreat.)
City employees attending included City Manager Paul Radford, and the Assistant City Manager, City Clerk, City Attorney, Economic Development Director, Planning Director, Parks and Recreation Director, Finance Director, Facilities Director, IT Director, and the HR and Executive Services Manager.
I disclose the names of the people who are ultimately responsible for this waste. While the unnamed folks seemed to have a big time just like the rest, none of them could have authorized, stopped, or refused to attend this retreat without permission from the people named.
Line by Line
They spent $๐ญ๐ณ๐ต a night on hotel rooms for 16 people for two nights, for a grand total of $๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ด.
They spent $๐ญ๐ต๐ฏ๐ญ.๐ฒ๐ณ on mileage. The entire trip should have been around 520 miles. The Assistant City Manager and IT Director were right in there. The Finance Director and Planning Director had some extra miles, but were within 10 miles for each leg of the trip. The City Manager bundled it in with a trip to testify at the State Capitol (reason provided on the expense report). The Parks and Recs Director charged 578 miles to the City for mileage. That is the distance if you take I-85, although I'm not sure why you'd take that route rather than I-75.
Once they were in Thomasville, they rented a bus to ferry them around on Friday, March 4 for a city tour. That cost $๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ฌ.
They spent a grand total of $๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ด on catering for the meeting room, and $๐ฒ๐ฌ๐ฌ for the meeting room itself.
The total for lunches was $๐ฏ๐ฏ๐ฎ.๐ฏ๐ฌ. That includes $222.30 the City spent to take the entire group out to lunch on Friday. It also includes receipts people submitted to be reimbursed for their lunches. Most receipts were around $10 a person. The Parks and Rec Director and Economic Development Director submitted a lunch receipt for $60.87, apparently just for two people, himself and the Economic Development Director.
It's a lot of money. But as I collected the receipts, I noticed some key expenses were missing...
