Focus on How the City is Spending Your Tax Dollars
A report on staff expenses was missing basic information. The police budget shows few details. A debate over a walking trail shows how an unpopular million dollar project moves forward.
Two recent events show how the City of Medicine Hat makes decisions with your tax dollars. Neither one is illegal, but together, they raise questions about how the city shares information.
One was a report on how senior staff spent $168,040 of public money in 2025, as well as the annual 2025 Financial Report. The other was a debate over a $1 million walking trail to a small neighbourhood on the edge of the city.
Part 1: The Expense Report – What You Can't See
In April 2026, the city released a report showing how senior leaders - the City Manager, department directors, and the Fire Chief - spent $168,040 of taxpayer money. The Police Chief expenses were not included. The Fire Chief spent the most as Alex McCuaig wrote in this article, the City Manager was not far behind.
It was noted that it was the "first report ever."
Examples from the report:
"Luncheon meeting with member of public" - $37.03
"Coffee meeting with member of public" - $6.95
"Development Opportunity Lunch" - $86.70
The report did not include a number of pieces of information.
Missing: The Date
The report does not show when most of these expenses happened.
Missing: The Number of People
The report does not show how many people attended each hosted event.
Missing: A Clear Reason
Descriptions like "luncheon meeting with member of public" do not say who attended or what was discussed.
Missing: Who Incurred the Expenses
The report does not include the names of the staff who incurred the expenses. Medicine Hat has experienced significant turnover in senior administration. There have been
- interim City Managers,
- interim Managing Directors, and
- an interim City Clerk.
When titles change hands frequently, a department name alone does not tell you who was responsible. Without names, there is no way to track patterns by individual or know who approved each transaction.
The city's internal expense policy requires employees to document hosting expenses by explaining the nature of the business, naming who attended including titles and company name.
For comparison, the City of Calgary publishes its senior management expense report twice per year; Medicine Hat only publishes once per year.
Here is what Calgary produces.
Note that Calgary includes the following categories
Business Unit Posting Date
Name Amount
Expense Category Vendor Name
Transaction date Description
Source - City of Calgary Senior Management Expenses (Formatted for Readability)
Medicine Hat includes
Account
Department
Amount
Location
Text
Source City of Medicine Hat April 8 2026 Audit Committee Agenda Packet (Page 1 of 9)
Also Missing: The Police Chief
The report included expenses for the Fire Chief but not the Police Chief. Chair Cheryl Phaff asked why.
The Police Budget
The police budget also shows limited detail in public documents.
The city's budget documents show only a few line items for policing. More detailed information - such as spending on salaries, vehicles, or training - requires a formal ATIA request.
At Police Commission meetings, the Chief provides budget updates. These updates are typically one sentence, typically something like - "We have a negative variance. We are dealing with it."
Many other Canadian jurisdictions produce much more detailed documents about how public money is spent.
18 To 24 Hours to Produce the Senior Leadership Expense Report
The city stated that producing the expense report took 18 to 24 hours of staff time.
Most modern accounting software can export a report like this in seconds. A user selects a date range, chooses the columns they want, and clicks a button. The city has acknowledged that its financial systems need updating. Whether the time was spent on manual data entry, redactions, or system limitations, the result is the same: a report that took nearly three full days of staff time to produce.
Mayor Linnsie Clark previously requested expense and severance information from city administration. Her requests were not immediately fulfilled. A FOIP request for similar information was quoted at nearly $4,000 - approximately four times the amount quoted to a private citizen for the same work.
The Audit Committee Meeting
The senior leadership expense report went to the city's Audit Committee on April 8, 2026. Three councillors (plus the Mayor as ex-officio) sit on the committee which meets three times per year.
Courtesy City of Medicine Hat
Only Chair Cheryl Phaff and Vice Chair Yusuf Mohammed attended; committee member Brian Varga was absent.
The meeting packet was 280 pages long. Councillors are part-time; most have other jobs.
Phaff asked about the Police Chief expenses; she also asked whether the Fire Chief's expenses came from the fire department budget. Staff confirmed they did. Phaff said "none of it (in the report) stood out as shocking."
Phaff did not ask about the missing dates, the missing attendee counts, or the vague descriptions. Councillor Yusuf Mohammed said the committee would "have to take a look at how to break down info." He did not make a motion or ask for specific changes.
The committee moved to the 2025 Financial Report. Phaff and Mohammed asked questions about how budgets work; staff explained various policies and procedures to the rookie councillors.
The Organizational Chart in the 2025 Financial report shows the City Manager at the top of the chart. This change started with the 2022 Financial report, produced in April 2023 after fired City Manager Ann Mitchell was hired. Previous Financial Reports show Council at the top.
The audit committee closed the meeting to the public. One of the closed agenda items was the audit of the city's purchasing cards - the cards used for many of the expenses in the report. The closed sessions have no minutes or summaries produced of what the conversation entailed.
Many public bodies will disclose a general overview of sensitive subjects - they might say -
We noticed a lot of zombie credit cards, this is how we handled it to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.
The City of Medicine Hat provides no such information.
NB - This report will go to Council, it is possible some of them will have questions.
Part 2: The Walking Trail
A developer built a subdivision of about 22 homes outside the main areas of the city. Developments like this are called "leapfrog" developments because it was built beyond the city's main growth areas.
City staff recommended stopping work on the preliminary design of a $1 million walking trail to this subdivision. Staff said the trail ranked 77th out of 97 priority gaps in the city's draft Active Transportation Strategy. That ranking placed it outside the city's 10-year planning horizon.
Staff noted that $1 million could fill 2.5 kilometres of sidewalk gaps in higher priority areas or pave 2.8 kilometres of local road. It it worth noting that for every trail created there is maintenance cost in perpetuity.
On Tuesday April 7 2026 Council defeated a motion to stop the preliminary design work.
Only Councillor Cocks and Mayor Clark voted in favour of the motion to stop the design work, the remaining councillors voted against. Council then approved an extra $14,000 from reserves to continue the preliminary design. They directed staff to return with a request to proceed with construction by the third quarter of 2026.
Councillor Bill Cocks Apr 7 - City of Medicine Hat Youtube Video
Councillor Cocks said
Well, I'm sorry if you want country living in the city, it's going to be that - country living - but you shouldn't be expecting that a municipal trail system is going to connect you.
One million dollars equals approximately a 1 per cent tax increase.
Residents have told the Owl before the Apr 7 council meeting that they are angry about the proposed tax increases.
More expenses are coming - The firefighters' 4 year contract expired December 31, 2022. It will likely mean yet another budget amendment.
A Private Message During a Public Meeting
Courtesy City of Medicine Hat
During the trail debate at 1:35:30 into the council meeting, Councillor Brian Varga received a message on his phone.
Varga told Council -
I just got a message that said that this land was donated. So, it's donated land. So there's no cost to to the land where the trail's supposed to go.
There is currently no publicly available city policy on phone use during council meetings. There are also no rules about councillors receiving private information during public debates.
Other Canadian municipalities have recognized this as a problem. In Peterborough, Ontario, city council banned councillors from using cellphones during meetings. The city's legal director explained that even the perception of private communication on council matters "cannot be allowed."
In 2014 Kelowna BC Mayor Tom Dyas “The information that we go into these meetings with is the information that we’re supposed to make our decisions with,” Dyas said. “We’re not supposed to get (information) from outside sources . . . I think that’s something that has to stop because it puts in jeopardy the decisions that we make.” (Source Penticton Herald)
Medicine Hat has no such rules. The province wiped out all municipal codes of conduct in May 2025. Varga did nothing wrong - because there are no rules. But it is highly unlikely that a private company would allow a board member to take a private text during a vote and then announce new information from that message. The absence of rules does not mean the absence of standards.
Sources: City of Medicine Hat "Senior Leadership Expenses – January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2025"; City of Medicine Hat Audit Committee Agenda and meeting, April 8, 2026; OWL News report "$1M Trail Decision Rolling Back to Council" (June 6, 2025); City of Medicine Hat Personal and Travel Expense Policy (0107)
