Mayor Rob Ford has a better council attendance record than 21 current councillors and than former mayor David Miller did during the last two years of his tenure.

Ford, who drew widespread criticism for skipping more than two hours of last week’s three-day meeting to coach high school football, has missed 494 of the 3,334 council votes since December 2010, an absenteeism percentage of 14.8 per cent. He has been absent less frequently than 21 councillors, more frequently than 23.

Councillor Ron Moeser (Ward 44, Scarborough East), who has had health problems related to a failed ankle replacement, has missed the most votes: 55.4 per cent. Councillor John Filion (Ward 23, Willowdale) has missed 33 per cent, Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) 26.9 per cent. In all, 12 councillors have missed more than 20 per cent.

Miller’s attendance record cannot be perfectly compared with Ford’s: until Ford’s mayoralty, thousands of individual votes were not recorded in the official meeting minutes, and data for Miller only covers his final two years in office; the Ford data covers his first two.

But of the 1,382 votes in 2009 and 2010 that were recorded, Miller missed 41.8 per cent, close to three times the percentage missed by Ford this term to date.

Council’s long-reigning attendance champion is Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre). Holyday, who considers attendance so important that he used to calculate it himself, has missed a grand total of 41 votes this term, or 1.2 per cent — 53 fewer than even Speaker Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston), whose job it is to chair the meetings.

“I never leave the chamber. I might not always be in my seat — mostly I am — but if I do go for a stretch, it’s not very far away. I don’t go off to my office or something,” Holyday said. “So I’m there when the votes occur, and I just think it’s part of my job to be there to vote. That’s maybe one of the main things you do here.”

Ford himself made it possible to easily calculate attendance ratings. At his insistence, each individual vote is now recorded, and all voting records and attendance records are now posted online. His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Attendance tends to worsen during the evening hours, especially on the second day of each month’s standard two-day meeting. On Thursday, a rare third consecutive meeting day, 17 councillors ducked out early.

Councillors vote on both major policy issues and on minor procedural matters, such as whether to let a councillor speak for two more minutes. About a tenth of the 3,334 votes this term were on speaking extensions, which council largely abolished, in another vote, in October.

Ford missed nearly the same percentage of votes as a councillor last term: 15.3 per cent. The average absenteeism rate this term is 15.9 per cent.

“It seems to me that it’s better than it was,” said Holyday. “But I still notice that there are some councillors that don’t seem to place as much importance on their vote as they should.”

Moeser, who attended both meetings this fall, did not respond to requests for comment. An aide said he had ankle replacement surgery last year, then suffered an infection and was forced to get the replacement removed and the ankle fused. In September, he sent councillors a photo of the bulky leg brace he has been forced to wear.

Mammoliti did not respond to requests for comment. Filion, a councillor since 1991 whose North York ward is by far the most populous in the city, said he sometimes works in his office during the parts of meetings “when we’re doing a lot of nothing.” He said he has not missed any “important” votes.

“Ideally you’d be there for every vote, I suppose. I have a ward with close to 100,000 constituents . . . it’s just a super-busy ward. I’m there at meetings; I don’t miss meetings. But we do get into long stretches where nothing much gets accomplished, and I do have trouble sitting there for some of that and will go down to the office and get stuff done.”

He said, however, that he is “surprised” at how high his absenteeism percentage is, and he said he will now pay closer attention to how many votes he is missing.

Nine of the 12 councillors with the poorest attendance records are Ford allies: Mammoliti, Mark Grimes (25.1), Karen Stintz (24.8), Denzil Minnan-Wong (24.8), Michael Thompson (24.4), Michelle Berardinetti (23.8), David Shiner (23.5), Jaye Robinson (22.6), and Doug Ford (21.0).

The top 12 include four Ford allies — Holyday, Nunziata, Cesar Palacio (8.3 per cent), and Frank Di Giorgio (11.7 per cent) — and eight councillors who generally vote against him: Gord Perks (3.5 per cent), Mary-Margaret McMahon (4.5 per cent), Sarah Doucette (4.7 per cent), Adam Vaughan (5.1 per cent), Mike Layton (5.5 per cent), Mary Fragedakis (8.3 per cent), Josh Matlow (8.4 per cent), and Josh Colle (10.9 per cent).

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WHAT PERCENTAGE OF 3,334 VOTES DID YOUR COUNCILLOR MISS?

Ron Moeser 55.43%

John Filion 32.99%

Giorgio Mammoliti 26.93%

James Pasternak 26.30%

Mark Grimes 25.10%

Karen Stintz24.84%

Denzil Minnan-Wong 24.75%

Michael Thompson 24.42%

Michelle Berardinetti 23.76%

David Shiner 23.46%

Jaye Robinson 22.56%

Doug Ford 21.03%

Maria Augimeri 19.02%

Gloria Lindsay Luby 18.36%

Pam McConnell 17.94%

Anthony Perruzza17.22%

Joe Mihevc 16.77%

Gary Crawford 16.35%

Paul Ainslie 15.48%

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Paula Fletcher 15.36%

John Parker 14.85%

Mayor Rob Ford 14.82%

Ana Bailao 14.64%

Norm Kelly 14.13%

Janet Davis 13.11%

Chin Lee 12.99%

Raymond Cho 12.99%

Vincent Crisanti 12.84%

Peter Milczyn 12.45%

Glenn De Baeremaeker 12.36%

Mike Del Grande 12.33%

Kristyn Wong-Tam 11.97%

Shelley Carroll 11.91%

Frank Di Giorgio 11.67%

Josh Colle 10.92%

Josh Matlow 8.37%

Mary Fragedakis 8.34%

Cesar Palacio 8.31%

Mike Layton 5.46%

Adam Vaughan 5.10%

Sarah Doucette 4.68%

Mary-Margaret McMahon 4.47%

Gord Perks 3.51%

Frances Nunziata (speaker) 2.82%

Doug Holyday 1.23%