Oglow disputes 300 per cent increase figure

By Vernon Daily Courier staff Feb 23 /07 http://www.dailycourier.ca/
Jerry Oglow wants to set the record straight. The North Okanagan Regional District chairman disputed figures published in The Vernon Daily Courier that were based on information provided by NORD officials. According to figures provided to the newspaper the base pay for a regional district director will jump from around $1,500 a year to $6,000 – a 300 per cent increase. Oglow pointed out that there will be a pay reduction in other areas so the figure on its own is misleading. Specifically, municipal members of the Greater Vernon Services Committee will see their pay decrease from $4,600 to $1,600.

However, chief financial officer Alan Harris reconfirmed that some individual municipal directors will see their base pay increase to $6,000 from $1,500 which does not include their meeting pay. If municipal directors attend each meeting they will receive $7,904 whereas last year they would have received $3,357. “If you look at it on an individual basis and don’t look at anything else then yeah, it’s gone up,” he said. “Some (board) members will be getting more and some will be getting less.”

Although directors will see their pay increase, they will have to work for it. Oglow has created two new NORD committees and the directors attending those committees will be paid resulting in additional stipends. Including the cost of paying directors for attending the new committees, the overall bill for remunerating board politicians will rise 18.1 per cent to $233,933. Oglow could not say where the extra money would come from. He said the budget is just a recommendation and must be debated and approved before it can be implemented.

The pay increase, Oglow, said is based on the amount of extra work and responsibility the directors will have. “The bottom line is, the increase proposed is $35,800,” said Oglow. “That is assuming the directors approve all this stuff.” Oglow pointed out the pay local directors will receive is still below the average for directors in similar sized districts. The budget is expected to be tabled in March. Oglow said the last time the board had a raise was in the late 1990s, but he could not say exactly when, or how much the increase was for.