Home / Small purchases
The small purchases
Most public money goes out in amounts too small to make a contract report. Two municipalities publish every payment; the province does not.
17,916payments by the Town of Paradise, July 2, 2020 to Aug. 29, 20251
$443the middle payment
67%of payments were under $1,000
The provincial government publishes no line-by-line payments: the Public Accounts list departments and programs, not who was paid. Federal departments publish totals only for purchases under $10,000. An access-to-information request is the only route to the province's small purchases.
Paradise, month by month
| Month | Paid | |
|---|---|---|
| Jan. 2023 | $1.9 million | |
| Feb. 2023 | $979,436 | |
| March 2023 | $2.2 million | |
| April 2023 | $1.9 million | |
| May 2023 | $2.7 million | |
| June 2023 | $4.2 million | |
| July 2023 | $3.4 million | |
| Aug. 2023 | $2.9 million | |
| Sept. 2023 | $2.6 million | |
| Oct. 2023 | $2.2 million | |
| Nov. 2023 | $5.8 million | |
| Dec. 2023 | $3.7 million | |
| Jan. 2024 | $3.4 million | |
| Feb. 2024 | $3.2 million | |
| March 2024 | $3.3 million | |
| April 2024 | $2 million | |
| May 2024 | $1.3 million | |
| June 2024 | $3.3 million | |
| July 2024 | $5.8 million | |
| Aug. 2024 | $1.8 million | |
| Sept. 2024 | $2.7 million | |
| Oct. 2024 | $4 million | |
| Nov. 2024 | $2.1 million | |
| Dec. 2024 | $3.8 million | |
| Jan. 2025 | $3.9 million | |
| Feb. 2025 | $1.4 million | |
| March 2025 | $2.8 million | |
| April 2025 | $2 million | |
| May 2025 | $856,519 | |
| June 2025 | $2.5 million | |
| July 2025 | $3.5 million | |
| Aug. 2025 | $4.8 million |
Paradise's biggest vendors
| Vendor | Payments | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| CITY OF ST. JOHN'S | 157 | $27.3 million |
| OLYMPIC CONSTRUCTION LIMITED | 32 | $21.8 million |
| MODERN PAVING LTD. | 24 | $5.3 million |
| A. HARVEY & CO. LTD. | 26 | $4.5 million |
| SAUNDERS EQUIPMENT LTD. | 114 | $3.2 million |
| RV ANDERSON ASSOCIATES LIMITED | 55 | $3.1 million |
| CIBC Mellon | 113 | $2.8 million |
| MAHER'S CONTRACTING LTD. | 9 | $2.2 million |
| WEIR'S CONSTRUCTION LTD. | 152 | $1.7 million |
| Aon Reed Stenhouse Inc. | 44 | $1.7 million |
| EQUIPE ROCHON INC / TEAM ROCHON INC | 5 | $1.6 million |
| Dexter Construction (NL)(TB) | 8 | $1.6 million |
| Metrobus | 50 | $1.5 million |
| KELLOWAY CONSTRUCTION LTD. | 53 | $1.5 million |
| Fairview Investments Ltd. | 15 | $1.3 million |
What gets bought most often
| Description as printed | Times | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| professional services rendered | 319 | $802,230 |
| expenses | 226 | $114,271 |
| office supplies | 211 | $43,555 |
| crossing guard | 165 | $208,932 |
| program supplies | 161 | $13,189 |
| monthly maintenance invoice | 93 | $8,671 |
| boots | 85 | $22,534 |
| shop supplies | 81 | $42,237 |
| day camp supplies | 80 | $3,690 |
| supplies | 70 | $19,837 |
| lease payment | 67 | $29,254 |
| crossing guards | 55 | $72,726 |
St. John's, a sample
The City of St. John's publishes every weekly payment voucher, but as scanned images. 640 lines from the first 12 pages of the 2026 file were read by machine as a sample. 31 of them are payments to private individuals whose names the City blacks out; those show the description only.
Notes
- Town of Paradise, cheque and payment registers, monthly PDFs. Open the source