Travel By Public Officials: Yes, It Pays For Itself...And More

Sunday the Wisconsin State Journal asked: Mayor's travel: Beneficial to city or not?

The costs aren't huge, but Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and his staff have been doing some traveling, including overseas...

...The city has a nine-page policy covering travel, which says employees may travel at city expense when it's "beneficial" to the city.

Yes it is. And so is the travel by other city employees, as well as the training which is part of those costs. 

Unfortunately, because travel is often associated with 'junkets,' public officials and public employees travel less than they should.

Much of the travel of public employees is for training. Whether it is maintaining professional credentials, and staying current in technical matters, or it is learning about federal or state programs which may regulate or provide funding to the city, everyone from public health nurses to firefighters and city clerks to police officers benefit.

When I was mayor in 1977, attending a conference that year provided information about leveraging federal funds to obtain private investment dollars, and directly led to the plans to build Capitol Center. We removed a surface parking lot that covered almost two square blocks and built senior housing, a senior center, market housing, and a retail area.

The value did not stop there.  City staff was to learn how to apply those lessons to additional construction projects.

The city Housing Director and I took more than one trip to learn about HUD regulations, which resulted in the city obtaining more than its share of federal dollars for additional senior and low income housing, as well as ideas for using block grant dollars which are the heart of today's city housing programs.

In 1989-90, visits to Portland, Des Moines and St. Paul demonstrated how other communities were developing downtowns and working with the private sector. Information learned in those trips was instructive in planning and building Monona Terrace.

Meetings in Washington D.C., with other municipal officials led to successful adoption of several federal programs, including the 1994 assistance for local law enforcement and the eventual adoption of new federal transportation polices that recognized alternatives to the automobile.

In fact, if I have any criticism of Mayor Cieslewicz, it is that he does not travel enough. Minimally, despite any questions he may have about the organizations, he should  participate in both the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

Comments

[Jack Craver]

Interesting perspective. I can certainly see how most trips to have a purpose.

But don't new technologies, like videoconferencing, remove the need to travel as much? That's one of the suggestions mentioned by the UW administration in their call to restrict faculty travel more: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/316195

[Jack Craver]

But now that I think about it, this issue seems even more relevant with the upcoming federal infrastructure project. Massive amounts of money is going to be on the market for local officials to essentially bid on, and although Dave Obey will without a doubt do his part for northern Wisconsin, it doesn't seem unlikely that there could be some useful political maneuvering for local officials, even if that means hiring lobbyists etc to get Madison's voice heard. I'm of course speaking in generalities, but it sounds about right. This could be an exciting time to see some projects in the area that wouldn't get much attention otherwise.

You should check out this sight -- it's a sort of forum run by businessweek about how the infrastructure money around the country should be spent. People chime in about local concerns etc -- each state has its own page:

http://bwinfrastructure.ning.com/

the city today plays favorites when it comes to training and travel expenses, very often employees pay their own way, including mileage, when the city benefits.