Mayor Gregor Robertson spent thousands of dollars from a little known city hall fund on consultant services, mainly social media strategy and production, strategic political advice, and public relations. The goal was to improve outreach to the public through non-traditional means.
The total budget allocated for the mayor's discretionary fund was $128,400 for each year of 2009 to 2011, and most of it was spent. Within this amount, the mayor spent $85,934 for consultants in 2011, $86,587 in 2010, and $61,721 in 2009. The rest was spent for travel and training.
In the citys public annual financial report, the mayors fundover which the mayor and his chief of staff have signing authorityis included but not mentioned by name within the generic budget category called General Government. (This category accounted for $176 million in 2010, and the 2011 numbers are not yet available.) The mayors fund numbers are not broken down in the report, so the Courier obtained these through the freedom of information law.
Overall, the payments from the mayors fund are extremely small within the context of the citys yearly operating expenditures of about $1 billion.
NPA Coun. George Affleck said spending from the fund should be routinely published, and he argued that the city publishes significantly less budget information today than four years ago, especially since Robertson ran on a platform of open government.
I run a business and every penny you save is crucial. If the city faced a deficit, then that $85,000 per year for consultants would be the first thing Id cut, he said. He questioned the need to hire outside public relations consultants when city hall has a large communications staff.
But Kevin Quinlan, the mayors communications director, told the Courier that the mandates of the citys communications office does not necessarily extend to all the mayors communications needs.
The mayors office budget has funds set aside specifically for communications related to the mayor, he said. The role of the citys communications department is to oversee the overall communications to, and engagement of, the general public. It is not their responsibility to provide ongoing public relations or social media support specifically to the mayorthat is up to the mayors office. To do so would be at the exclusion of their regular responsibilities and day-to-day operations.
The largest consultant payments last year went to Rebeccah Mullen ($27,900) and Braeden Caley ($16,852). On her Linked-In profile, Mullen writes, I enjoy working with teetering disasters and venerable institutions equally. Caley is vice-president for communications of the Young Liberals of Canada.
The online tools the mayors office developed and manages include a website, Twitter and Facebook accounts, and e-newsletter. These are based on similar social media work done by other big city mayor offices including those in Calgary, Portland, and Seattle. An increasing number of citizens get their news through the internet and social media tools, and the mayor feels it is important to provide people the opportunity to engage with city hall in this way, Quinlan said.
During the three years former NPA mayor Sam Sullivan was in office, spending for the mayors fund was $120,000 annually, including $57,776 for consultants in 2006, $85,632 in 2007, and $47,008 in 2008.
Affleck added his company Curve Communications provided consultant work for Sullivan on the Mayors Arts Awards six years ago.
For a look at the mayors discretionary fund, click here.
For a list of the consultants used by the mayor, click here.
stromp@telus.net
