Essex councillors will now be getting paid to drive outside their ward on municipal business.
Councillor Randy Voakes says council needs to be compensated milage for longer trips. "It's not uncommon for any one of us, at any given time, to make several trips outside of our ward ... to discover problems that taxpayers have raised to us."
Voakes says getting paid for mileage addressing local issues makes more sense than attending out-of-town conferences. "That council, last year, spent tens of thousands of dollars on mileage going to those conferences and extinguished less concerns than I do every day, out there doing what I'm doing."
What can councillors claim for mileage? Voakes says there isn't a grey area. "You just can't be going out to Harrow to the parade. It has to be business affiliated," he says. "If you're going to look at a drainage concern, that's the business at hand that will be submitted."
