A Global News investigation has revealed how the City of Richmond spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on restaurant gift cards.
Results of a freedom of information request for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024 returned 493 pages of documents, including receipts and emails.
They show the city spent approximately $156,000 in 2022, $218,000 in 2023 and $124,000 in 2024, for a total of about $498,000. Subtracting possible duplications, it came to $445,000
Richmond previously said that gift cards cost taxpayers $32,800 in 2022, $71,550 in and $71,300 in 2024.
Richmond spent $73K on restaurant gift cards in 2023
A Richmond employee, who we agreed not to identify because they were not authorized to speak on the topic, told us many cards were kept in a bowl.
Others were handed out for no particular reason, they said.
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“At the moment it seemed great, you got a card but when you think about it, why are we getting these, we are very well paid to do our jobs and we’re not a private organization so these are all tax dollars,” he said.
He said some employees were asked to perform before they were given the gift.
“I heard it, I never saw it, sometimes they would make you sing a song and you got a card for it,” he said.
The employee said they never saw anything written down to account for how they were distributed.
“These are the kinds of things that would actually fall under the mandate of an auditor general,” said Gordon Ruth, British Columbia’s former auditor general for local government.
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“Local governments in British Columbia no longer have that extra level of transparency, accountability and really a look toward public efficiency.”
After requesting additional time to review numbers, City of Richmond responded that, as we reported, “multiple records exist for the same transaction. As a result, we have been unable to verify your numbers.”
The city also said that “there is no gift card budget in the City of Richmond,” something that Ruth called troubling.
“I mean it’s a fairly significant expenditure so I’m surprised that they weren’t planning and managing it,” he said.
Will the gift card program continue?
Richmond says “gift cards are now only permitted for use when recognizing long service, retirement and volunteer service.”
The discretionary part of the questionable program has apparently been cancelled.
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