Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell and six of her staff have charged more than $622,000 on their city-issued credit cards since the start of 2007.

Newly released documents obtained by the Star show many credit card charges above and beyond previously revealed expenses, including a $4,404 Air Canada flight by Fennell to London, England, in December 2007, and $28,006 spent at the InterContinental hotel on that trip by Fennell and chief of staff Ian Newman.

The new revelations come as Fennell is battling fierce criticism over her high pay and lavish spending. She was the highest-paid mayor in Canada in 2012, earning $213,000, including her Peel Region salary, and would have earned more last year but for a secret request to have her pay withheld for November and December. It has also been revealed she charged $186,000 for expenses over a three-year period up to 2013, and that she and her staff expensed $185,000 over five years for travel costs.

In an emailed response to the Star, Fennell said the 10-night trip to London was taken because “Brampton was a finalist in the 2007 World Leadership Awards.” The company that ran the awards program dissolved a couple of years later.

Fennell said she was “part of the City of Brampton team that travelled to London,” but the costs did not show up under her expenses because they “were covered through City of Brampton departmental budgets.”

Fennell’s hotel charge in London was $5,592. Newman said his “$24,000 charge” at the hotel was for 10 nights and was so large “because I paid for more than one room.”

Other credit card charges revealed in the latest documents include $1,077 charged to Fennell’s city-issued American Express card for her airfare to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in March 2007; the same amount was charged for a flight for her husband, John Fennell. On the same day, there were charges of $971 each for Malcolm (Scott) Ching and Judith Leavitt to fly to Miami. Ching and Leavitt both sat on Fennell’s private gala committee.

There was also an $842 car rental charge in Fort Lauderdale and a $1,012 car rental charge in Miami around the same time.

Fennell owns a condo in Miami Beach.

In Fennell’s response, she stated that these costs were reimbursed. However, the documents obtained under a freedom of information request by the Star, which included all credit card reimbursements up until four weeks ago, showed no reimbursement receipts for Fennell’s March 2007 charges for Florida. The mayor did not respond to a follow-up question on when she made the reimbursement.

Other mysterious charges include one from senior staffer Michael Halls, who charged $3,610 in March 2009 for an expense associated with a Miami Beach-based trade association.

Sandra Carpino, who handles Fennell’s scheduling, charged four $238.89 flights from Buffalo to Atlanta for herself and three others with the same last name. It’s not clear that these were reimbursed.

Between February 2007 and November 2013, Fennell expensed 39 separate charges at Shoppers Drug Mart, totaling $2,937.

A spokesperson for the city, asked about why there appeared to be no oversight for these expenses, said in an email that, “Prior to February 2011, the Mayor was authorized to approve her own expenses.”

After that point, though council had approved a new expense policy, “it did not include a requirement for the Finance Department to approve their expenses.”

Following other recent FOI disclosures of Fennell’s spending, council dramatically cut her previously unlimited expense budget.

Councillors have asked for a $10,000 cut to Fennell’s annual $23,500 car allowance next year, removed about 70 per cent of her discretionary budget, made her account for all future foreign travel in her own budget and eliminated all first-class air travel, after Fennell recently took three separate first-class trips to Asia in a four-month period.

On Councillor John Sanderson’s urging, council also voted for a forensic audit of council spending that will be completed by the end of June.

Other expenses revealed in the credit card documents include 13 charges at the LCBO totaling $1,946. Newman explained that a “$579 amount from March 9th, 2007, was for the City of Brampton United Way Charity Curling Bonspiel.” He said the other LCBO charges were for door prizes for “various events.”

Of the total amount charged on credit cards since 2007, $45,417 was reimbursed, according to the FOI documents. Fennell and her staff reimbursed $16,689 and Fennell’s private gala reimbursed $24,294. Part of that was $2,445 charged by Carpino at online jewelry store, later reimbursed by the gala.

Fennell’s statement to the Star said the credit card charges covered by the gala, many of which were for expenses in Florida, were in keeping with the gala’s mandate to “promote Brampton.”

Proceeds from the gala are used to support local arts and community groups.

Included in the recent expense disclosures that have angered Brampton residents is Fennell’s $49,000-a-year on-call limousine service, on top of her taxpayer-paid $1,400-a-month lease on a Lincoln Navigator SUV.

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A recent poll suggests the popularity of the four-term mayor, who has been on the job since 2000, has plummeted.

A Forum Research survey of 1,019 residents taken Saturday showed Fennell’s approval rating at only 29 per cent.

The poll also found that in a three-way race for mayor in this year’s election, she would easily be beaten by her chief opponents, Councillor Sanderson and Linda Jeffrey, who plans to register for the race Wednesday morning. Poll respondents gave Fennell 17 per cent of the vote, Sanderson 29 per cent and Jeffrey 39 per cent.

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