He has characterised payments recorded as donations to members of his Future Dunedin team as loans.
Cr Simms said he had a "variety of private arrangements" with team members regarding repayment of at least $35,000 in campaign costs from the election.
"Some of our candidates didn’t necessarily have the wherewithal to pay all of their own costs," he said.
"So I’ve paid some of it and they’re paying me back over a period of time ... some more rapidly or, you know, more rigorously than others."
Dunedin City Council candidate expense and donation returns were due last week and most were up loaded to the council’s website on Friday.
The rest are expect ed to be published early this week.
Future Dunedin’s campaign spend total led $158,480, including GST, with costs split between nine candidates.
Cr Simms recorded $35,010, six Future Dunedin candidates were allocated $17,650 each and two ex-members $10,820 and $6750.
Cr Simm also had a separate $10,618 of his own expenses, although he was the top-polling councillor, none of Cr Simms’ team-mates followed him on to the council and Sophie Barker beat him to the mayoralty by 898 votes.
Of Future Dunedin returns available Friday night, members Jarrod Hodson and Amy Taylor each recorded donations of $17,650 from Cr Simms, as well as $1250 and $3889.22 of their own expenses, respectively.
Cr Simms said donations were also recorded on the not-yet-published returns of Bruce Ranga, Conrad Stedman and Andrew Sutton, although amounts would vary.
Future Dunedin ticket co-founder Bex Twemlow recorded $24,120.51 spent — $17,650 in team expenses and $6470.51 of her own expense — and noted no donations.
In Dunedin, a total spending limit of $55,000 applies to mayoral and council candidates in the three months before an election — any earlier spending is only required to be recorded if it covers goods or services used during the campaign period.
Donations of more than $1500 must be declared.
Cr Simms, who declared the biggest spend of the mayoral candidates who have so far declared, said, following advice from the council, the payments were recorded as donations to comply with the law.
He was unable to say how much the donations totalled but he expected to recover most of the money.
"I’m certainly not going to put the bailiffs on them," he said.
Ms Barker said candidates who were part of teams could get an advantage but it was allowable.
She spent $26,467.78 and said she had saved for three years for her campaign.
"In order to get your message across, you’ve got to spend a bit of money."
To some extent her campaign and her record "stood on themselves".
Cr Lee Vandervis, who spent $16,500.20 and finished third in the mayoralty race, said Future Dunedin’s "unprecedented" advertising spend showed changes to expenditure rules were needed.
Otherwise, only multimillionaires would be mayor, he said.
He had not seen donations made to team members before.
Asked if the donations allowed him to spend over limits, Cr Simms said he expected scrutiny for the amount spent but the approach was not unusual.
"Yes, you could argue that that [gives] people in a team position, particularly a mayoral candidate that’s part of a team, the ability to mount a much broader campaign as a result.
"I still hold we played exactly to the rules as they are. If the rules need changing, that’s a matter for an other day." Cr Simms, a car dealer, said the campaign boosted his personal profile despite Future Dunedin’s disappointing election result.
"My anxiety over that is mollified by the fact that we’ve probably got a ... threefold return from that, in terms of the increase in business [car sales].
"I’m well and truly in the black in that respect ... but we didn’t go into it expecting that," Cr Simms said.
"My motivation is only to do a much better job for Dunedin than perhaps what’s been done in the past."
When asked about his business profiting from a campaign funded in part by others, Cr Simms said it would be "recompense for the assistance that I’ve given them throughout".
Ticket costs were also allocated to Jo Galer ($10,820) and Rachel Brazil ($6750), who left Future Dunedin during the campaign; there were "fairly robust discussions" about cost recovery from the pair, Cr Simms said.
—Additional reporting Grant Miller
