Latest news with #PaulMochrie
CBC
16-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
6 charts that break down the City of Vancouver's finances for last year
Every year, it's the biggest disclosure of every municipality in British Columbia. The City of Vancouver is expected to approve its 2024 Statement of Financial Information on Wednesday, a 165-page document that outlines exactly how money was spent in the city last year and how much money virtually every politician and employee made. The yearly disclosure is required by provincial law, and every municipality in B.C. must publicly release their financial statements by June 30. Aside from city hall's budget, it must include the remuneration for every employee, the amount given to different companies for services over $25,000, and the remuneration for every elected official and staff member over $75,000. As such, there are plenty of stories that come out of the annual statements — not just when they're released but in the weeks and months afterward. But here are four immediate stories from Vancouver's statement that caught our eye. A $3 billion city It was just 20 years ago that Vancouver's revenues eclipsed $1 billion for the first time, and since then, they have steadily risen, with the exception of a one-time pandemic in 2020. But last year, they went up at a rate never seen before. For the first time, Vancouver's revenues eclipsed $3 billion in 2024, a $548.5 million increase from 2023. According to the city, the majority of that increase was due to a $333.3 million increase in developer contributions, which the city attributed to "phased community amenities [and] development cost levies." Because most of that increase was unplanned, the city recorded an $860,634 annual surplus, continuing a long line of large surpluses that the city reinvests into various contingency funds and capital projects. Overall, the city's operating expenditures remained similar year over year, with the highest line item going to police protection ($474 million), followed by utilities, parks and recreation, and engineering. Highest paid employees Every year, plenty of attention is paid to the city's highest paid employees, but the list is generally quite stable, with the top managers in various departments generally receiving steady increases in their base pay. So it was again in 2024 in Vancouver, as retiring police Chief Adam Palmer received $487,224, once again the highest in the city. That was a five per cent increase from his 2023 salary, and his three deputy chiefs were the third to fifth highest paid employees in the city, with city manager Paul Mochrie second at $387,110. The top 10 paid employees with the city all made more than $300,000, just the second time that has happened. 6-figure councillors For the first time in Vancouver's history, all sitting councillors received over $100,000 in base compensation for their year in office. The 10 elected councillors made between $102,674 and $119,749 for their roles, with their base rate of $101,937.68 being augmented by various stints as deputy mayor or acting mayor. (Those salaries do not include additional compensation for sitting on various Metro Vancouver boards.) Mayor Ken Sim made $207,958, with $22,756 in local expenses and $28,034 charged for travel and various conferences. There have been several stories about Sim's travel as mayor, and while the amount he's expensed the city is significantly higher than his predecessor Kennedy Stewart, it's comparable with that of Gregor Robertson, Vancouver's mayor from 2008 to 2018, who re-entered political life this month as a federal candidate for Parliament with the Liberal Party. A reminder that what goes around in politics often comes around.
CBC
06-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
City official apologizes for voting delays in Vancouver byelection
Social Sharing Vancouver's city manager is apologizing for the voting delays in Saturday's byelection, after residents faced up to hours-long waits to cast their ballots. The long cues backlogged polling stations across the city, leaving hundreds of people still in line after polls closed at 8 p.m. PT, and delaying results past midnight. The issue was likely largely driven by a January council decision, brought forward by staff, to cut the number of polling stations in half and the number of people staffing them by nearly two-thirds. Paul Mochrie, Vancouver's city manager, on Sunday apologized to voters impacted by what he called unacceptable voting delays in the byelection, especially after a record turnout for advance voting and mail-in ballots. WATCH | Long lines frustrate Vancouver voters: High turnout and 62% staffing cut lead to major lines in Vancouver byelection 16 hours ago Duration 1:53 Long lineups were reported at polling stations across Vancouver on Saturday as voters cast ballots in a two-seat city council byelection. In a statement Saturday afternoon, a city spokesperson attributed the delays to 'significantly higher voter turnout.' Justin McElroy breaks down what led to the lengthy waits. "We made a number of assumptions in planning for this election, around vote turnout, distribution, capacity to process votes," he told CBC News on Sunday. "Clearly, from what we saw yesterday, those assumptions were flawed, and we did not have sufficient resources to process the turnout that we received." In total, 67,962 ballots were cast in the byelection, for a voter turnout of about 15 per cent — a 40 per cent increase from 2017, when the turnout was around 11 per cent. Following an inquiry by CBC News, the City of Vancouver said there were 25 polling stations staffed by 265 workers Saturday, down from 50 stations and 631 workers in 2017. Overall, the city's budget for the byelection increased from $1.5 million in 2017 to $2 million for 2025. Mochrie said the election planning fell entirely on civil servants, and not to elected officials, and acknowledged that the turnout was higher than what officials had planned for. He said the next step is to get the councillors-elect sworn in, which he estimated will happen later this month or early in May. Councillors-elect look ahead The byelection was a chastening result for the city's ruling ABC Party, which still maintains a majority on council but whose candidates finished a distant sixth and seventh in the preliminary count. Progressive candidates Sean Orr, of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), and Lucy Maloney, of OneCity Vancouver, instead took the top spots. Orr, a housing activist, landscaper and dishwasher, had previously run with VOTE Socialist in the 2022 election. He told CBC News he was blown away by having received the most votes in the byelection, and called it a humbling experience. "It just confirmed what I thought about Vancouverites — that they care about the city, we care about the city, we care about integrity and we care about each other," he said. Orr and fellow councillor-elect Maloney said they would push back on Mayor Ken Sim and ABC's agenda. In particular, the two mentioned a recent move to freeze construction of new supportive housing in the city, as well as a motion to bring back the option of natural gas heating in new homes in the city, which ultimately failed. "It just shows how dissatisfied people are with Ken Sim and ABC, and the direction they're taking in our city, that people were prepared to go to so much trouble to stand in line and participate in our democracy yesterday," Maloney said on Sunday.
