City Attorney's Template

The City of Burbank recognizes the constructive value of professional conferences, seminars, meetings, and training and provides travel funds for City officials, department managers, and other employees to attend such official events. Newly enacted Assembly Bill 1234, effective January 1, 2006, (Government Code sections 53232 et. seq.) requires that in order for City Council members to receive reimbursement for their actual, necessary and reasonable expenses associated with travel, meals, lodging and other actual and necessary expenses associated with attending such events, the City Council must formally adopt an expense reimbursement policy.

Many of the new statutory provisions are already contained in the City�s existing expense reimbursement policies which are found in the Administrative Procedures, however, those are not formally adopted by the Council. The City Council Expense Reimbursement Policy under consideration here contains those existing policies and the additional new statutory requirements. While we have some concerns whether these provisions are legally applicable to a charter city, notwithstanding the statement in the legislation that charter cities are included within the definition of �local agency�, we would still recommend adoption of this policy.

The most notable changes which have been incorporated into the proposed Expense Reimbursement Policy include:

1. Requiring the City Council to formally adopt a written expense reimbursement policy;

2. Requiring all expenses to be reported in an expense report and supported by receipts and submitted within a reasonable time after incurring the expense;

3. Requiring the council member to certify that the expenses meet the reimbursement policy when submitting reimbursement claim;

4. Requiring council members to publicly report on meetings attended for which reimbursement is sought at the next regular meeting of the Council;

5. Restricting reimbursement for lodging at government or group rates offered for the activity (for example a conference) if available and if not, then only comparable lodging or at the IRS rates ;

6. Requiring receipts for all meals (this forecloses the per diem practice we had been using for meals, although the reimbursement rate is the same as the per diem rates);

7. When an expense for which reimbursement is sought isn�t covered in the Reimbursement Policy or within the IRS rates, the Council must approve the expense at a public meeting in advance of the expenditure.

8. Removing the auto allowance. At the present time, the Council members receive a monthly auto allowance of $125.00. The Mayor receives $185.00 and the Vice-Mayor receives $145.00/month. The new legislation does not seem to make any exception to the requirement that all reimbursement be supported by receipts documenting actual expenditures.

9. Any changes to the Expense Reimbursement Policy must be approved by Council Resolution.

AB 1234 also requires mandatory ethics training for all elected officials. The Attorney General and the Fair Political Practices Commission are still developing the curriculum standards, as required by the legislation. Once they are developed, we will be providing the requisite training to all City of Burbank elected officials and legislative bodies, as required by the statutes.

It is recommended that the City Council adopt a Resolution entitled �A Resolution of the City of Burbank adopting the City Council Expense Reimbursement Policy�.

Council Agenda - City of Burbank

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Memorandum