A provincially-funded study on integrating services in the Capital Region has found Victoria spent over $43-million dollars on government administration in 2015.
The next highest total was Saanich, with $14-million.
With a per-capita cost of $510 dollars, Victoria is the only municipality to exceed $300 dollars, but mayor Lisa Helps says it's not an accurate comparison.
"We put a lot of stuff listed into general administration, but if you look at other local governments they'll put things that we've put into administration in their own categories: Community grants, debt services, etc. We'd just like the province to have an apples-to-apples comparison."
Helps says if a fair comparison is done the actual per-capita cost for Victoria's government administration in 2015 was $168 dollars, which would bring it near the bottom of the list of the CRD's 13 municipalities.
The Capital Integrated Services and Governance Initiative study is being conducted by two consulting firms. The preliminary report is currently available online with feedback being collected until December 15. A final report is expected early next year.