When the Seattle City Council adopts a $4.4 billion dollar 2014 budget on November 25, one item will stand out: a $750,000 funding bump for Seattle's next mayor, Ed Murray. "This would be in addition to the [mayor's] base budget of roughly $3.75 million," explained Ben Noble, director of the city council's central staff, at the council's November 8 budget committee meeting.

Why is this line item so unusual? Four years ago, Mike McGinn was elected mayor. That same week, the council cut $524,891 in staff funding for the new mayor's office. Another $500,000 in staff funding could not "be spent until... the Mayor submits a plan for how policy functions will be organized in the Mayor's office," according to the 2010 budget.

Now it's the opposite story. On November 5, state senator Murray was elected. Later that week, the council's budget committee proposed adding $750,000 back into the staffing budget for our next mayor, no strings attached.

How this huge sum will be spent is unclear. Jeff Reading, a spokesman for Murray's transition team, explained, "It's likely that there will be new positions... but it is too early to say." And, oddly, Murray's staff insisted the council spontaneously offered the money, while the council said Murray requested it.

"It seems like a reasonable request from the new mayor," Council Member Nick Licata said. "However, it's a lot of money. He cannot create new positions without our authority, and I don't see him being able to just increase staff salaries. My own inclination would have been to have Murray report back to the city council to let us know how he intends to spend the money."

When called for comment, several council members, including budget committee chair Tim Burgess, declined to explain the huge cut made to McGinn's staffing budget—and why it was abruptly reinstated three days after the 2013 general election.

One explanation could be that, four years ago, the city was amid a financial crisis. Hard cuts needed to be made. Those cuts came from, among other places, the mayor's office. Four years later, in a healthier economy, those cuts are being reinstated. Coincidentally, days after the election.

However, this explanation doesn't take into account the intervening years, as the economy revived. And, frankly, it stretches credulity to dismiss petty politicking as at least one motivation for the cuts. Four years ago, the city council was facing a new mayor they did not endorse. Subsequently, they cut his staff budget by more than half a million dollars a year, and then complained about how ineffectual he was. And how difficult to work with. (The council also twice froze McGinn's money for transit planning.)

This year, the city council welcomes a mayor they approve of—four council members even endorsed Murray. Subsequently, they reinstate his staff budget by $750,000.

The move fortifies the argument that McGinn's early mayoral problems were due, at least in part, to obstructionism at the hands of the city council.

Murray should be thankful the council likes him.