How much does it cost to run a Vancouver city council meeting?
It’s a question that does not have one answer.
As Glacier Media learned from reading a council document and receiving some additional information from the city’s communications department, the tab depends on whether the meetings last a half day (3.5 hours) or full day (6.5 hours).
A half day can cost $5,931, and a full day $6,729.
That’s the cost of city clerk Katrina Leckovic’s legislative team to run a meeting.
The cost doesn’t include having security guards on hand — a noticeable addition this year in the lobby outside the council chamber and adjoining hallway — or staff from technological services present during the meetings.
Estimated cost for their services is $2,578 for a full-day meeting.
So that means the cost to run a full-day meeting with all the necessary staff in place runs about $9,307. But wait, there’s more…
“Please note that these figures do not account for additional variable costs such as the salaries of presenting staff, city manager’s office staff and mayor and council,” said an email from the city’s communications department.
'Major undertaking'
The cost to run a council meeting was the subject of a staff report presented in July to Mayor Ken Sim’s budget task force implementation oversight committee.
This is the committee that was created to do what its name says — implement recommendations from a group of business-minded volunteers appointed by Sim who took a deep dive last year into the city’s financial picture.
Since that report was presented to council in January, the oversight committee has met a few times and has considered the idea of creating a new standing finance committee. That was one of the recommendations in the task force report.
Such a committee comes with a cost, as Leckovic outlined in a report in July.
“Creating a new council committee, whether it includes all council members or a subset of council members, is a major undertaking that affects the entire organization and should be part of a broader consideration of the city’s governance structure,” she wrote.
Registering speakers, preparing scripts
The “legislative operations team,” which supports council meetings and other related functions, has remained nearly the same size over the past 25 years.
The eight-person team manages council meetings, in-camera meetings, standing committees, public hearings, business licence hearings, council staff briefings and a variable number of council advisory committees.
The meeting team handles work before, during and after meetings, including coordinating with staff and external presenters, formatting reports, preparing and posting agendas, registering speakers, preparing scripts, taking minutes and other duties.
Although two staff members were added between 2016 and 2020 to support civic agencies and the nomination subcommittee, no additional support has been provided to the council meeting team.
This is despite the addition of an auditor general committee, the mayor’s budget task force implementation committee and an increased number of business licence hearing meetings related to short-term rental regulations.
“Before 2020, two staff members were typically needed per meeting,” Leckovic said.
“However, since the introduction of electronic participation in all meetings of council, a third staff member is now required to manage phone lines. Additionally, the city clerk or a deputy city clerk now attends all meetings of council due to their increased complexity [until seven years ago, they did not attend public hearings].”
'Report volume and complexity'
In her report, Leckovic estimated nine full-day meetings of a new finance committee — excluding costs for security and tech services — would total $60,561. Three meetings would come in at approximately $20,187 and five meetings at $33,645.
At the same time, she noted tasks “can vary dramatically” depending on factors such as report volume and complexity, the number of public speakers and the schedules and preparation of non-city clerk’s office staff, including consultants.
“Please note that additional [city clerk’s office] administrative costs are incurred if [American Sign Language] or closed captioning services are provided during a meeting, which includes additional coordination work and accommodation of specific accessibility needs,” Leckovic said.
“Based on the above meeting estimates, adding another standing committee to an already over-capacity team would likely require the addition of one meeting staff member.”
The mayor’s budget task force implementation oversight committee has yet to put the recommendation for a finance committee before council. It would be up to the committee to decide on number of meetings necessary per year for a new finance committee.
Hours logged by council
So far, the Sim-led ABC Vancouver majority has spent less time in meetings than the previous Kennedy Stewart-led administration between 2018 and 2022.
Glacier Media reported in November 2023 that Sim and the 10 councillors spent 339 hours, 46 minutes and 48 seconds in meetings between Nov. 7, 2022 and Nov. 15, 2023. Number of days totalled 102.
The Stewart-led council, which served when the pandemic was declared in 2020, recorded 474.3 hours and 153 days in meetings in its last year before the Oct. 15, 2022 election.
In 2020, hours logged totalled 549.5. In 2019, it was 498.5.
Council’s next public meeting is scheduled for Sept. 24.
