S.L.'s tax-funded food bill is nearly $80,000

Salt Lake City's various departments spent nearly $80,000 — roughly the cost of two new police officers — last year on lunches, dinners and snacks for elected officials, board and commission members, city employees and others.

Those meals included anything from takeout at local restaurants such as BC Chicken or Sampan Chinese to nuts and chips provided to City Council members during late-night meetings.

The city's food costs were reported to the Deseret Morning News as part of a Government Records Access and Management Act request.

And while Salt Lake City's policy on spending tax dollars to feed its workers falls in line with that of several large cities across the Wasatch Front, many other local municipalities decline to use public money to feed employees and officials. Instead, those cities require employees and politicians to fend for themselves — even when attending meetings that coincide with mealtime.

"We don't purchase meals," Midvale city administrator Lee King said, noting his city's council food budget hovers around $100 a year — much less than the $13,476 the Salt Lake City Council spent on food in 2004.

Layton doesn't offer food to council members and staffers on the taxpayer's dime either. Instead, city leaders and employees provide their own nourishment.

"I can think of maybe two or three times in the last year" that the city has provided food at a City Council meeting, assistant city manager Jim Mason said. "Our practice is not to provide meals on a regular basis."

But other big cities including Ogden, Provo and Sandy regularly provide free meals, similar to Salt Lake City.

Draper is one city in a food transition.

Traditionally, the municipality has shied from providing food at council meetings, but it's changing that policy.

"Heretofore we haven't done that," Draper city manager Eric Keck said. But with meetings going deep into the night, "people suffer from low blood sugar, and eating candy isn't enough," Keck said.

In Salt Lake City, administrators say food costs are justified. Providing food often allows city employees to work through mealtime without leaving City Hall to find grub.

"Food is fuel, and you need to eat," city spokeswoman Deeda Seed said. "It expedites our ability to work."