The last time this policy went up for adoption the overall budget for Members Expenses was $30,000 per year, this has since increased in the new budget to $46,000 per annum.The proposal is currently on public exhibition for comment.

Councillors will go from a $2,000 to $5,000 budget while the mayor will see an increase of $13,000 going from a $5,000 budget to $18,000.

Mayor Mathew Dickerson said this was the maximum limit a councillor can use, and doesn't mean all the money will get spent.

Speaking to the Daily Liberal over the phone from a meeting of Country Mayor's in Sydney, Cr Dickerson said an analysis was done comparing how much money was spent on travel in the first six months of 2019 compared to the first six months of 2022.

2020 and 2021 were excluded from the analysis due to the lack of councillor travel due to COVID-19.

In 2019, it was found that $19,000 was spent on travel in the first six months, while only $13,000 has been spent so far in 2022.

"So it is certainly less then pre pandemic times," he said.

"It is interesting that travel for the first six months of this year has been significantly less than the first six months of 2019, so I don't think we are going overboard by any stretch of the imagination but it is dramatically less then 2019 and you can't compare to the last two years."

The mayor explained the money gets spent on travel to conferences, events, and meetings.

"One thing I have certainly been encouraging councillors to do without a doubt is to make it to conferences and various events," he said.

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Councillors from Wellington will now also be able to claim their travel from Wellington to Dubbo for various meetings.

"The last council didn't allow that, but I think it is reasonable," he said.

"You don't get paid a lot as a councillor, so every time there is a meeting in Dubbo, that is 100 kilometres of travel you wouldn't have gotten paid for."

Councillors travelling from Dubbo to Wellington for meetings will also be able to claim their kilometres.

Aside from the mayor and deputy mayor, all other Dubbo councillors were new to the job and Cr Dickerson said it was important for them to learn the ropes at various conferences and meetings.

"We are really making sure councillors can get to various events and make sure they are participating in that wider picture," he said.

"I encourage as much as possible councillors to attend various functions and events and make sure knowledge is being distributed."

Now that DRC has re-joined the Alliance of Western Council's, the Newell Highway Taskforce and the Lower Macquarie Water Utilities Alliance, there is a lot more travel involved, Cr Dickerson explained.

"Unfortunately the previous council did withdraw various organisations and groups so we weren't attending those," he said.

"If you are functioning well as a council I believe, councillors should be out and involved with other groups and other organisations."

Cr Dickerson said it was important for councillors to "physically" attend these conferences and events because it also allows for networking.

"It's important for a council that function well to attend conferences, learn from industry professionals and create industry contacts and all those things I think are very important," he said.

"Council shouldn't put walls around its border, it should be collaborating with other organisations at various different levels to achieve better outcomes for the residents of Dubbo."

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