AL.com Opinion

About the writer

Read more

Montgomery's city council spent a grand total of $1,579 on travel and training in all of last year.

Birmingham City Councilman William Parker, in the first half of this year, spent 11 times that much.

$17,318.

Huntsville's city council allotted a total of $14,250 for its travel this year.

Birmingham's council and staff, in the first six months of this year, approved spending almost $101,000 so councilors and staff could criss-cross the country.

But don't worry, the city says. Don't fret about that $12 million budget deficit. It will all come clean in the wash. And in the meantime, city officials and staffers keep on flying 'round the map like Indiana Jones on a three-day bender.

Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.

If, as expected, the city council today approves advance travel spending for council and staff totaling about $8,500 – including four trips to the Clinton Global Initiative in Denver – the approved spending for the offices of the mayor and council this year will come to $139,000.

That doesn't include travel by Mayor William Bell himself, because that doesn't have to be approved by the council. The mayor's office estimates Bell has spent about $70,000 for travel this year, visiting places like Washington D.C., New York City and Denver.

It puts travel by those offices this year – it includes some travel late last year that was approved in this calendar year, and some approved travel that has yet to occur – at more than $209,000. Or just about a dollar for every man, woman and child in Birmingham.

With half a year to go.

Where do they go? Where don't they go? (See it all below)

They go to Washington, D.C., for the National League of Cities conference ($29,888). They go to Denver for the New Partners for Smart Growth conference ($8,658). They go to Point Clear, to the retreat from the city itself. They even spent $2,300 to send folks to a conference on volunteering and service.

Hope they learned a little something about volunteering and service. On your money.

City officials go to the Empowerment Congress Leadership Institute ($8,199) and the National Diversity Council ($3,254). They go to the Black Women's Roundtable at the Women of Power National Summit ($1,592), to the National Forum for Black Public Administrators Conference ($2,258), and to the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials ($1,161).

I'm all for empowerment. I'm all for diversity, but that's a lot of green.

Especially when we are – black and white and whatever – looking at a city in the red.

Besides the mayor, Councilman Parker has traveled the most. His 19 trips total more than $17,000. Most of his travel, however, involves meeting with the Environmental Protection Agency. He is deeply involved in pollution issues in North Birmingham.

Mayoral Chief of Staff Chuck Faush was approved for at least 11 trips worth $13,000. Council administrator Cheryl Kidd registers 10 trips, also totaling about $13,000. Both went coast to coast to coast.

It is, frankly, business as usual. In Birmingham.

But not elsewhere. Hoover, for instance – population 82,000 – has spent a grand total of zero dollars for mayor and council travel in the last year and a half. It budgeted $7,500 for such travel this year, but so far hasn't spent a dime.

Huntsville, with a population of 180,000, budgeted $42,250 for city council and administration travel. That's about 23 cents for every Huntsvillian. In a whole year.

Montgomery, population 206,000, spends about $16,000 on travel for the mayor and council offices in a year. That's about 8 cents per Montgomery resident.

And consider this. Mobile, population 195,000, this year budgeted $207,000 for the entire departmental operating budgets of its offices of mayor and council.

And Birmingham, in half a year, has already spent more than that -- about a dollar for every one of its 212,000 residents – on travel.

A lot of things have changed in this town. A lot of things ought to.

John Archibald is a columnist for Alabama Media Group. jarchibald@al.com

Search below to see approved travel for mayor and council staff:

to load this Caspio

.