Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim was successful Tuesday in adding an additional $80,000 to his $1.47-million office budget to hire a scheduler, despite pushback from council’s three opposition councillors.
The 7-3 vote came after Sim fielded questions from OneCity’s Christine Boyle and Green Party councillors Adriane Carr and Pete Fry, who wanted the mayor to explain why the position was necessary.
“In my opinion, we're a lot more active [than previous administrations] and the scheduling of my activities are off the charts, insanely crazy and complicated and literally change every 15 minutes,” Sim responded.
The mayor reminded councillors that the $80,000 was in this year’s budget to fund an administrative assistant for the mayor’s office. The funds, however, were to be allocated to the city clerk’s budget.
Council heard that since the approval, senior city staff recommended the $80,000 be reallocated to the mayor’s office. A staff report explained that the position would entail a close day-to-day working relationship with Sim and “the exercise of decision-making regarding prioritization of the mayor’s time.”
“Considering the intended function of the new administration position as described above, the city manager and city clerk are of the opinion that the role would be appropriately constituted as a member of the mayor’s staff,” the report said.
The report continued that the required duties are “intrinsically connected to the mayor’s activities and are not conducive to effective performance by an employee who reports through the city’s administrative structure to the city clerk.”
During debate Tuesday, city manager Paul Mochrie further explained the rationale for shifting the $80,000 from the city clerk’s budget to the mayor’s office.
“That's a difficult relationship to manage for civil servants…they don't actually take direction from the mayor,” Mochrie said. “So in our view, this role was much more closely tied to the mayor and his activities day to day, and would be better suited by someone who worked as a member of that team.”
'There's no debate here'
Opposition councillors also focused on the fact the mayor’s office budget continues to increase — $100,000 in this year's budget, on top of the $80,000 — but that there is no line-by-line accounting of Sim’s office expenditures.
Boyle unsuccessfully attempted to have that information provided to council each year.
“This is real garbage,” she said after Sim and his ABC Vancouver councillors voted not to hear the amendment.
Fry then asked the mayor about Boyle’s efforts.
“Does this mean that the democratic process is completely suspended here, and we don't get to ask for the transparency piece — that the amendment is done?” he said.
Sim: “There's no debate here.”
Fry called the move by the ABC Vancouver majority “outrageous.”
Mochrie later clarified to council that it depends on the definition of “line-by line” accounting, but that expenses incurred by the mayor and council are uploaded every three months to the city’s open data portal on the city’s website.
The mayor argued his budget was “relatively in line” with previous mayor Kennedy Stewart’s office budget when accounting for inflation — and the fact the early days of the pandemic reduced meetings and events for Stewart.
“This place was literally shut down,” Sim said.
Kennedy Stewart's office budget
Glacier Media obtained data Tuesday from the city’s communications department that gave a breakdown of Stewart’s office budget while he served as mayor from November 2018 to November 2022.
The data:
• Jan. 1 to Nov. 6, 2022 — $997,263.00*
• Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2021 — $1,112,010.00
• Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020 — $1,137,110.00
• Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2019 — $1,083,961.00
• Nov. 5 to Dec. 31, 2018 — $184,971.14*
*Note for 2018 and 2022: The city said council does not approve a specific budget for partial years associated with a specific mayor, so the partial year amounts are an estimate using proration of the budget that council approved.
Prior to Tuesday’s vote, Sim’s office budget of $1.47 million was spent largely on his eight political staff and three administrators. ABC Coun. Lisa Dominato, who wanted a review of Stewart’s office budget in the previous term to look for cost savings, was absent for Tuesday’s vote.
