What Vancouver pays its mayor, councillors, park commissioners and school trustees

The October 17 ballot filled 27 seats: a mayor, 10 councillors, 7 park commissioners and 9 school trustees. Each office comes with a salary set in advance by a bylaw or a board policy. This guide gives the exact published figures, the year each one applies to, how each is set, and where the payments are reported. Every figure below comes from the City of Vancouver or the Vancouver School Board.

Mayor and council: the 2026 rates

The City's council salaries page lists these rates for 2026:

The same page lists the rates back to 2022. The councillor salary was:

• 2022: $91,879
• 2023: $98,586
• 2024: $101,938
• 2025: $104,180
• 2026: $106,159.74

By our calculation from those figures, the councillor rate rose 7.3 percent in 2023, 3.4 percent in 2024, 2.2 percent in 2025 and 1.9 percent in 2026. The mayor's salary was 2.02 times the councillor's salary in each of those 5 years.

How council pay is set

Section 196 of the Vancouver Charter lets council pay its members "by by-law". The same section allows the bylaw to pay the mayor, deputy mayor and acting mayor more than other council members.

The City says pay follows the Mayor and Councillor Remuneration Bylaw No. 11483, and that "salaries are adjusted annually in accordance with the bylaw." The salary is taxable.

The 2026 rates apply for the rest of 2026. The City's page listed no rate for 2027 when this guide was prepared.

Deferred pay at the end of a term

The City describes a payment called deferred remuneration. It goes to a mayor or councillor, including a deputy or acting mayor, who serves a full term and then does not run again or is not re-elected. The payment is:

• one week's salary for each year of office served, at that year's salary,
• prorated for the part of an election year served,
• no more than 4 weeks' salary for a full term, and
• included in the final paycheque.

Council expenses

Expenses follow a separate bylaw, the Mayor and Councillor Expenses Bylaw No. 11529. The City describes these parts:

• Transportation. The mayor may use a vehicle for City business or take $600 a month. Each councillor's yearly allowance is 60 percent of 10 percent of that councillor's salary.
• Local expenses inside Metro Vancouver, such as event fees, parking and memberships. The mayor's limit is 10 percent of salary. A councillor's limit is the lesser of two amounts set out in the bylaw, the first being 10 percent of salary.
• Travel and training outside the Lower Mainland, which needs council's approval for each trip.
• Discretionary expenses, such as research, outreach and communications, up to a limit council sets in the yearly budget.

Council approves attendance by the mayor and councillors at each yearly convention of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities or the Union of British Columbia Municipalities. The City says the council expense data on its open data portal is updated every quarter.

Park Board commissioners

The City's Park Board salaries page says commissioners are paid under the Park Board Remuneration By-Law No. 11484, and that salaries are "reviewed annually in accordance with the bylaw". The page gives these rates, labelled "The 2022 rates":

• Commissioner: $18,743.38 a year
• Board chair: $23,428.65 a year

That was the latest rate shown on the page when we checked it on September 29, 2026. Commissioners can also claim expenses under By-Law No. 7336, for representing the board, doing board business, or attending a course, meeting or convention. For more on what the board does, see our guide to the Park Board.

School trustees

Trustee pay is set by the Vancouver School Board itself. Section 71 of the School Act lets a board "authorize annually" pay for the chair, vice chair and other trustees, and allows more for the chair and vice chair.

The board's Policy 6, adopted on May 27, 2026, lists two sets of rates:

The November rates follow the election. Policy 6 explains the jump. In the last year of each term, the board compares its pay with a group of large urban school districts. The policy's appendix names Abbotsford, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Langley, Richmond and Surrey. The base rate is the average of those districts, rounded to the nearest hundred dollars. The chair gets 30 percent more and the vice chair 15 percent more. Any change from that review "shall apply only to the subsequent Board term". The policy says the aim is that trustees "do not establish or adjust compensation for their own benefit during the term in which they serve."

Between reviews, Policy 6 says pay is adjusted on September 1 each year by the change in the Vancouver Consumer Price Index, a measure of how prices rise, unless the board decides otherwise. Each trustee also has $3,000 a year for training.

Policy 6 also sets trustee expenses. Meals while travelling on board business are paid at up to $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $40 for dinner without receipts. Child care during board meetings can be claimed, at rates tied to the BC minimum wage. Vehicle mileage and personal travel costs cannot be claimed, and neither can hotel costs inside Metro Vancouver. More on the job itself is in our guide to what a school trustee decides.

Where the payments are reported

Actual payments are reported after each year ends.

• City council. Section 196A of the Vancouver Charter requires a report, at least once a year, listing each council member by name with their total pay and expense payments. Council must consider it at a public meeting.
• City and Park Board. The City's Statement of Financial Information for 2025 was released on April 16, 2026. The City says it lists pay and expenses for the mayor and councillors, Park Board commissioners, Vancouver Police Board members and Vancouver Public Library board members.
• School Board. The board's Statement of Financial Information for the year ended June 30, 2025 lists $333,819 in pay and $17,169 in expenses for its elected officials, a group of 9 trustees and 2 student trustees.

Financial disclosure statements

The City also publishes a second record. It says current council members file a financial disclosure statement each year on January 15, as the BC Financial Disclosure Act requires. Each statement is posted on that member's page on vancouver.ca, and the signed originals can be inspected at City Hall.

To see who was elected to each office, go to our candidates page.

The City of Vancouver and the Vancouver School Board publish the official figures. If anything here disagrees with vancouver.ca or vsb.bc.ca, their documents are correct.