The compliance audit on Ward 22 (Scarborough-Agincourt) Coun. Jim Karygiannis’ 2018 election expenses will finally go ahead, after Karygiannis dropped a court appeal of the audit.

Karygiannis had appealed the decision Toronto’s Compliance Audit Committee made last summer to order the investigation into his campaign spending – on the grounds that his lawyers had been given insufficient time to respond to what they argued was a complex set of allegations about the campaign finances raised by elector Adam Chaleff.

The withdrawal means that the investigation into Karygiannis’ expenses, ordered by Toronto’s Compliance Audit Committee July 2, 2019, can commence.

As first reported on toronto.com, Karygiannis raised $217,000, which is significantly more than any other councillor who’d prevailed in the 2018 municipal election, but he listed expenses that were well under his spending limit of $61,207.95.

Chaleff raised several issues, and the audit was ordered based on three of those.

Karygiannis paid $81,000 in honoraria to 19 individuals after election day, and Chaleff questioned whether that money was actually paying those people for work they’d done during the election. Another expense, $13,600 for promotional flyers, was not categorized as an election expense, and Chaleff argued that it should count toward his spending limit.

And finally, Karygiannis classified a post-election dinner costing $27,000 as a fundraising event rather than a show of appreciation, which would need to be accounted differently.

This last expense briefly cost Karygiannis his job last fall, when in a supplementary filing he moved that expense from the category of fundraising to that of a show of appreciation.

Under the authority of the Municipal Elections Act, Toronto’s Clerk removed Karygiannis from office because the expense exceeded the $5,000 cap on appreciation events.

A Superior Court judge later ordered Karygiannis returned to office, accepting his argument that the subsequent filing was an error.

Chaleff and his lawyers have appealed that decision. That appeal will go ahead.

But Karygiannis’ decision to withdraw his own appeal of the July 2 Compliance Audit Committee decision means that his compliance audit will proceed immediately, conducted by the accounting firm MNP LLP.

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“This audit is long overdue and must be conducted as expeditiously as possible,” said Chaleff in a statement.

When reached by phone and asked about the withdrawal of the appeal, Karygiannis would not comment and directed inquiries to his lawyer Michael Binetti. A call to Binetti’s office indicated that Binetti is out of country and unavailable to comment until Jan. 13.