Burbank city manager’s report tallies travel costs

Burbank City Council members racked up $24,370 worth of travel costs between June 2013 and early September 2015.

Most of that spending went to airfare, lodging and event registration fees, according to a report prepared by City Manager Mark Scott and his staff.

“Burbank’s budget for council travel is modest for a city of our size and expectations,” Scott said in a memo accompanying the report.

The report was distributed to council members late last month, shortly before all five council members attended the League of California Cities conference in San Jose — one of the few trips all five council members have taken together — and others attended a law enforcement conference in Riverside.

Last week, in the council’s first meeting after the conference, Councilwoman Emily Gabel-Luddy recommended the travel expense report be prepared on a quarterly basis.

The league conference is one of the more consistent travel expenses for the city, accounting for nearly one-third of City Council travel expenses in the past two years, or nearly $8,000 for travel, registration and lodging. The conference includes training opportunities and various informational sessions of interest to policymakers.

The 2013 event was the only expense former council member Gary Bric sought reimbursement for in the last two years of his term and one of 10 for Councilman David Gordon in recent years. Along with the 2014 conference, it was one of only 10 travel expense reimbursements issued for Councilwoman Emily Gabel-Luddy, too.

It’s consistently among the most expensive trips city council members take, and this year was estimated to cost up to $7,000 for all five to attend, according to a staff report prepared in late August. In early September, those costs were included in a travel budget of $32,000 approved by council members for fiscal year 2015-16.

“I think it’s tremendously valuable for council members to attend those conferences,” Scott said in early September when the council was considering its travel budget. “You can’t really put a value on it because you don’t know what the value is of what you’re going to pick up while you’re there.”

He said that conferences provide an opportunity for council members and staff to network, to receive training, to meet with state and federal legislators and to learn about things like grant opportunities that could give the city an advantage that they wouldn’t have if they had not been there.

Other conferences in recent years have included a four-day National Assn. of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement conference, which Mayor Bob Frutos attended in 2013 in Salt Lake City for $1,370 and in 2014 in Kansas City for $1,455.

He also attended a League of California Cities academy for new mayors and council members in 2014 at the cost of $1,085, more than half of which was registration costs. He and Gabel-Luddy also attended a league forum for mayors and council members this summer in Monterey, which cost nearly $1,100 each.

Gabel-Luddy traveled to Portland earlier this year to participate in a planning conference related to the city’s efforts to plan the area around Bob Hope Airport in anticipation of a proposed High-Speed Rail station, a trip which cost $1,135.

Councilman Jess Talamantes, a retired firefighter, traveled to Orlando, Fla., for the Center for Public Safety Excellence Conference in March, where the Burbank Fire Department was accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. His travel, lodging and related expenses cost the city $1,100.

Few of the council members’ trips take them out of the state, though they occasionally have traveled to neighboring states, usually for trips related to the city’s utility. In this year’s travel budget, council members approved costs for legislative and lobbying trips to Washington, D.C. and a sister city visit to Incheon, South Korea.

Councilman Will Rogers, who joined the council in May and had not accrued any travel expenses at the time of the city report, said last week that he attended ethics training at the League of California Cities conference and sessions on “numerous issues” related to transportation and municipal finance, among others.

He said he also attended a law enforcement oversight conference the following week and “was terribly impressed with it.” He said he was looking forward to attending the law enforcement conference again next year in Albuquerque, N.M., but he’d wait to see a program for next year’s league of cities conference before deciding whether to attend that one again.

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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland