Former Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown spent $292,451 — almost an entire year’s office budget for an MPP — in his final months at Queen’s Park.According to documents from the Ontario Legislative Assembly’s finance department obtained by the Star, Brown submitted office and support staff expenses totalling that amount from the start of the fiscal year in April. The expenses include severance payments that continue to be paid out.Brown did not run in the June 7 election, and he said his expenses in his final weeks include severance payments to long-time staff, as well as a mass “thank you” mail-out to constituents and two goodbye receptions in his Simcoe North riding.His expenditures are part of an incomplete list obtained by the Star that includes other non-returning MPPs. MPPs have yearly office and support staff budgets of $299,000. “I think it’s appropriate for people that have spent years working for you, that they are entitled to severances as outlined by the legislature,” Brown told the Star in a telephone interview Thursday, noting such payments continue into the next fiscal year.He said one employee, who has been with him for years, is now a senior and “entitled to the maximum severance, which is just shy of a year.”Read more:An ex-homeless man could be Oshawa’s next mayor. Here’s a look at three fascinating GTA election racesOpinion | Martin Regg Cohn: What Ontario can learn from Quebec’s ‘change’ electionPC MPP Randy Hillier — who complained earlier this year to the province’s integrity commissioner about Brown — tweeted that “this new abuse of office, along with the malfeasance exposed by the integrity commissioner, demands a full and thorough investigation by the OPP. I once stated he was unfit to be an MPP, he is also unfit for any public office.”Hillier later told reporters the office budget is “used ...
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