After weeks of deflection and damage control over her bloated expenses and high salary, Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell finally heard directly from council colleagues on the issue at a budget meeting Tuesday morning.

Councillors cut Fennell’s car allowance by $10,000 a year, removed about 70 per cent of her discretionary budget, voted to have costs of international travel folded into the mayor’s and councillors’ own expense allowances and put a stop to covering the cost of first-class travel, after Fennell took three separate trips to Asia over a recent four-month period.

The move came after councillors challenged claims that Fennell is not, as widely reported, Canada’s highest-paid mayor. A report to council claimed her salary is only the ninth-highest in the country.

The report arrived at the No. 9 ranking by omitting the extra pay Fennell gets from sitting on the Peel Region council and by including three regional chairs on the list, even though most are unelected, aren’t classed as mayors and perform a role more akin to that of a CEO.

“You can’t include the regional chairs in this,” Councillor Grant Gibson said. “That’s just completely out of order,” he said of the comparison.

The report was presented by Rob Filkin, a Brampton resident who chairs the council compensation committee. Filkin also sits on the board of the private gala that used to be known as the Mayor Susan Fennell Gala and which she chaired until her resignation in the face of criticism over its lack of financial transparency.

Fennell’s total salary of $213,000 has been criticized as the highest of any Canadian mayor in 2012. But Filkin said she is only the ninth-highest paid when only her city pay is included. With the $50,000 paid to her by the region is included, she is the second highest paid.

Filkin claimed Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi earns more than Fennell, which Councillor Elaine Moore questioned, noting that his salary is posted online, including his RRSP contribution, and appears to be less than Fennell’s.

For an apples-to-apples comparison, Councillor John Sprovieri and others pointed out, the regional pay must be included because a two-tier regional system demands the same responsibilities as a single-tier system.

“When you look at the mayor’s situation in Toronto (Rob Ford earned $173,000 in 2012), he does all the things that our mayor in Brampton does. But when you look at the wage difference, we have to be fair to our residents.”

Councillor Gael Miles, one of Fennell’s closest council allies, came to her defence while the mayor remained mostly silent.

Miles said the regional system is like working for “two corporations.”

Councillors also asked questions about the fact that one-third of Fennell’s salary is tax-free, as is also the case for councillors’ salaries.

Unlike councils in most Ontario cities — Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham and Burlington among them — Brampton council continues to vote for the one-third tax-free exemption on its salaries.

The Municipal Act was changed about a decade ago, removing the old exemption system, which was originally intended to help municipal politicians cover expenses they paid on their own.

Now that most cities provide politicians with expense accounts and other allowances, they must pass a special bylaw to keep their one-third tax-exempt status.

Fennell and council have supported their tax-free exemption, despite having expense allowances. In Fennell’s case, unfettered by the cap put on councillors’ expenses, she charged $186,000 to the city in less than three years for items that included a $3,100 seat upgrade to India, $1,300 for Mandarin lessons, $1,500 on orchestra tickets and a $1 Apple iTunes download. She also gets a $23,500 car allowance and the services of a driver at $46,000 per year.

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Council voted to freeze their upcoming 2 per cent salary increase and plan to review the current salary formula.

In addition to cutting Fennell’s expenses, they also tightened up the rules for their own expense budgets to curtail instances of questionable spending within their ranks.

The moves will be finalized at Wednesday’s public budget meeting, slated for 6 p.m. in council chambers.

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