Sunday, June 13, 2010

Big Jump in City Staff Costs

City salaries cost taxpayers 18.6 M in 2009Salaries at Vernon City Hall skyrocketed by three million dollars last year. Figures released in the annual financial report show the city spent $18.6 million on its staff last year, up from 15.5 million in 2008. The number of staff paid $75,000 or more went from 41 to 63. In 2007, the number was 27.

Mayor Wayne Lippert tells KISS FM, most of the increases are the result of mandated union increases, although there was some new positions, a couple of which were former regional district functions. "Functions such as tourism and economic development which we took over last year, so there have been new employees, we've got a couple of new firefighters for example, but the majority of the creep you're seeing is from my understanding, from union contracts (CUPE, Firefighters) that were negotiated two or three years ago." Eleven city staffers were paid over $100,000 last year including the top earner, administrator Leon Gous at $145,202 and fire chief Jeff Carlisle at $110,603.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

During this economy? A 3 MILLION increase over last year?

Anonymous said...

"But the majority of the creep that you are seeing"-is he referring to himself? His excuses are lame duck excuses and show that salary costs are out of control under Lippert and Gous.

Kalwest said...

Better re read the book "Pigs at the trough". Rather apropo given the large increase in pay and staff.

Can you imagine what the salaries would look like now if the 10 additional firefighters (librarians) at $800,000, were hired to takeover the OK Landing Fire Dept.