Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson says it’s acceptable his discretionary fund jumped 86 per cent over one year, because his 2015 overall mayor’s budget of $1.2 million was down by 2.7 per cent.
In an online article for Business In Vancouver, investigative journalist Bob Mackin says the mayor’s discretionary fund does not require itemized approval from the finance committee, and allows contracts without tenders.
“For 2015, it was $264,000 total, which is a substantial increase from 2014 when it was only about $130,000,” reports Mackin.
Robertson counters, “We shifted some of the funding into discretionary” because, he says, his office needed flexibility with a number of major projects, like the Transit Funding Tax Plebiscite, which the mayor lost.
Mackin says the documents since 2011 show 60 per cent of the mayor’s discretionary fund was spent on communications consultants.
NPA councillor George Affleck says, “As the mayor, when he talks about affordability and the ever-increasing costs to people of this city, the first place he should look is literally in his own office.”
“If he can’t provide restraint of his own spending, how can we expect he has any kind of ability to manage taxpayer dollars?”
His communications staff says, “The total budget for the office for 2015 was $1,219,380, but the actual budget spent was $1,186,533.90 – meaning it came in $32,846.10 (2.69 per cent) under budget. Discretionary fund included in it.”