Council votes to boost office budgets for Calgary councillors

Calgary city council have voted in favourof boosting councillors office budgets but against a proposal to create more wards.

• City councillors swamped by reading, Manning Foundation concludes

The motion passed by a margin of seven votes to five.If the increase is approved in the overall budget vote set forNov. 24 to Dec. 5, the allocation for councillors office operations would go up by $1.7 million.

The extra money would allow each councillor to hire one additional support staff member.

The increase would take effect in 2015 and would not affect the projected property tax increase of 4.7 per cent.

By a vote of nine to three, council rejected the idea of increasing the size of council.

Council had been told that movecould cost as much $4 million in new office space and salary costs.

The size of Calgary city council has not increased since 1977.

Coun. Druh Farrell suggested council should find ways of being more efficient before it looks at adding more elected members.