The St. Louis County Board received praise today from a county government watchdog for cutting their own mileage rate for 2009.
Kevin Skwira-Brown of the group We Are Watching publicly thanked commissioners for quietly voting in Dec. 23 to eliminate what many called an excessive mileage reimbursement rate that only applied to themselves and a few other county employees for county business in personal vehicles.
The increase raised such a ruckus that few if any commissioners ever applied for or received the higher rate.
The board approved the higher mileage rate in December, 2007 at 72.6 cents per mile, 22.1 cents higher than the Internal Revenue Service's rate of 50.5 cents per mile that was paid to most county employees for the first half of 2008.
The board will receive the IRS rate for 2009, currently at 55 cents per mile.
