Although soon-to-be former Spokane City Councilman Steve Salvatori famously gave up a full-time council assistant and made arrangements to send the $50,000 allocated for the position to worthwhile community causes instead, his replacement would still be able to hire one.

Turns out that $20,000 of the allocation earmarked for the University District Development Association has yet to be distributed, and now is being held back.

Council President Ben Stuckart said he and Salvatori already have discussed the need to suspend the distribution in case his replacement chooses to hire an assistant. Salvatori's last council meeting will be July 8 and the council is hoping to have a replacement selected by the end of August, which means it should be enough to cover the salary and benefits of an assistant for the remainder of the year.

Salvatori was a vocal critic of what he called "mission creep," and pointed to growth in how much the council was spending on itself. The move to provide a full-time assistant for each council member beginning this year was one of his prime examples, and he noted that just six years ago the seven-member council all shared one assistant, then provided part-timers for each council member, adding healthcare benefits shortly after that, and expanding them to full-time this year.

He arranged with Stuckart to have the money allocated for his assistant be spent on homeless and youth services and economic development efforts. It landed both in front of the city's Ethics Committee earlier this month on allegations they failed to properly disclose Salvatori's connections to one of the groups. The ethics panel split 3-3 and dumped the complaints.

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