The CTF has often written and commented on double dippers – individuals who are paid by different governments at the same time, or collect both a government pension and a government wage. Double dipping is one of those topics that most people immediately understand and really don’t like.

Raymond Louie, the Vancouver city councillor, doesn’t double dip. He doesn’t even triple dip. Raymond Louie is a quadruple dipper.

First, Louie draws a salary as a Vancouver City Councillor. He makes $68,552 a year (that’s just a shade below the average Vancouver household income of $71,140). Louie also expensed $19,393.66 last year, including a $4,153.20 “transportation allowance.” He also expensed a $40 book called “If Mayors Ruled the World” – I imagine this is a horror novel aimed to scare the bojangles out of property taxpayers.

Louie has been given the newly-created role of “Acting Mayor.” It doesn’t appear like this job comes with a pay bump – but stay tuned. No one works for free in government for long… and if this ever becomes a paid position, it would be Louie’s fifth dip.

So that’s Dip #1. Dip #2 comes in Louie’s role as vice-chairman of Metro Vancouver. Louie took home another $35,466, and expensed a further $13,527. That made him the third-highest paid Metro board member, behind chair Greg Moore and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie.

Dip #3 comes from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), a lobbying group funded by municipal tax dollars. Louie has just taken over as president, and the FCM says the role comes with a $350 per diem (eagle-eyed readers will note the bulk of Louie’s City travel expenses were for FCM gigs). Hard to say how many days Louie will cash in a per-diem, but even if he only collects 21 days, that’s another $7,350. Louie was just in Botswana for the Commonwealth Local Government Conference (whazzthat?), representing the FCM.

Finally, Dip #4 – Louie’s role as PNE chair. You may recall that Louie and the PNE board just dumped the Vancouver Parks Board representative, cementing his grip on power. Louie earns a top-up of $2,250 a year as chair.

The quadruple dip brings Louie’s pay package to $113,618, plus expenses of $32,920.66 (this may actually be higher, depending on any expenses charged to the PNE board or FCM). That’s more than Vancouver MLAs like Jenny Kwan, David Eby and Sam Sullivan make. Not a bad chunk of change for a city councillor.