Part 1 in a 11-part blog series looking at questionable expenses of several government employees, as revealed by CTF Freedom of Information requests.

Penny Ballem is the CAO of the City of Vancouver, ranking as the third-highest paid local government employee in B.C. in 2011-12. Ballem made $334,002 last year, with expenses of $2,931.

We asked for her expense receipts (along with those of fellow Vancouver employees Mike Magee and Kevin Quinlan) and got this package.

First, she buys a lot of gas – especially in Squamish and Whistler. Greenest city, indeed.

Ballem joined a Board of Trade tour of Milan, Italy, on your dime (p. 94). Tough life: total cost to taxpayers ran $3,647.63. As part of that trip, she squeezed in a couple of weeks in Munich, Germany: she arrived in Munich May 10, but didn’t take a train to Milan until May 27.

But it was the cost of a very local trip that really left us scratching our heads. Ballem went to the 2012 provincial budget lockup in Victoria, February 21, 2012. She expensed a $691.32 flight from Vancouver Airport to Victoria Airport (pp. 10-12), plus $126 in cab rides to and from Victoria Airport (p. 13). At 24 minutes in the air, that airfare worked out to $28.81 per minute. Seems pricy, especially considering there was a Vancouver budget briefing, and many people fly in and out of Victoria for the lockup on the same day, for much cheaper.

Did we miss anything? Leave us a comment with your thoughts on Ballem’s expenses – or Mike Magee or Kevin Quinlan’s, which are also in this FOI and this one.