Mayor, councillors high risers

Ron Seymour 2010-06-28 Kelowna Courier:
Salaries for Kelowna‘s mayor and councillors have risen twice as fast as the average British Columbian‘s earnings over the past decade. The city‘s elected representatives have had a 50 per cent pay increase since 2000, while average wages across the province have risen 25 per cent. "I think I get fairly paid for the work I do, in comparison to other communities of similar size," Mayor Sharon Shepherd said Sunday. "Actually, if you looked at it on an hourly basis, I‘m probably down to a very minimum wage," she said. Shepherd earned $87,422 last year, one-third of it tax-free. In 1999, then-mayor Walter Grey drew $59,038, also with one-third of it tax-free. Since 1999, the pay for councillors has increased from $19,500 to just over $30,000. Again, one third of their salaries are also not subject to taxation. In 2000, the average weekly wage in British Columbia was $639, according to Statistics Canada. By last year, that had increased to $800.For the mayoral and councillor salary increases to outstrip those of average people by a two-to-one ratio is "way out of line", said Maureen Bader of the BC Taxpayer‘s Federation. "It‘s wrong for them to be giving themselves these outrageous salary increases when they‘re helping to create an economic climate in which working people are seeing their incomes stagnate, or only rising very slowly," Bader said.

Recent practice in Kelowna has been for a three-person citizen committee to be created by council every three years to examine the pay for elected representatives. The most recent adjustment was made in 2008, when a committee chaired by retired military officer Jack Dangerfield suggested pay increases for the mayor and councillors be linked to changes in the Consumer Price Index. Council accepted those recommendations and received pay increases on Jan. 1 in 2009 and again this year. A similar salary review committee will likely be created before the 2011 civic election, Shepherd said. "I think there has been a fair analysis done every few years on the salaries paid to mayor and council," said Shepherd, mayor since 2005. "Serving on council is a lot of hard work." But she doesn‘t expect pay for herself or her councillors will change significantly as a result of the next salary review. "There would likely be a recommendation coming forward based on these economic conditions to not change the amount," Shepherd said.