Vancouver Mayor proposes increasing councillors' discretionary budgets

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is proposing to increase city councillors’ discretionary budgets five-fold, from $6,000 a year to $30,000.
In announcing the proposal on Monday, Stewart, the city’s first independent mayor in three decades, emphasized that increasing council budgets was his idea, not something being pushed by council members. The goal, he said, would be to provide more administrative support for councillors and improve their ability to interact with the public.
&l