The City of Vancouver has posted detailed budgets and expenses for Mayor Gregor Robertson and his council online.
Previously, accessing the expense records required filing Freedom of Information requests.
Now online is an itemized list of expenses incurred by each council member in 2010. For the years 2002 to 2009, fewer details are provided, however, viewers can see how much each councillor spent for each budget category: transportation, local expenses, travel and training.
The expenses are being posted in accordance with the city’s open data and open standards policy. According to information provided by the city, expenses will be regularly posted.
Robertson introduced a motion to post expenses publicly in March 2009. It was unanimously supported by council.
Robertson said in a press release.“By posting the detailed expenses of council online, we’re improving our accountability to the citizens of Vancouver,”
This step follows previous transparency and accountability measures, including the release and posting of 56 in-camera reports and documents dating back to June 2008 and 133 datasets of information collected by the city through the open data initiative.
Calls to the City of Vancouver were not returned by press deadline.