Council debates how to arrive at their fair remuneration

Dave Preston - Kelowna Capital News Published: August 27, 2010 11:00 PM

It took 37 minutes Tuesday night for a deadlocked council to discuss and debate the thorny issue of how to pay themselves. In the end, council decided nothing.

Council adopted a motion in 2008 that reads, in part: “The mayor and councillor’s remuneration will be the median of that paid the mayor and council in the comparative group of municipalities and will be reviewed in January of each year.” The policy was to take effect in January 2009 so that it would be applicable to the mayor and council that were to be elected in November 2008, according to Lorne Raymond, manager of finance. Six benchmark communities were selected to become the comparative group—Langley, Campbell River, North Cowichan, Penticton, Port Moody and Vernon.

Raymond told council that, in January 2009, a staff review of the comparative group resulted in 2009 compensation for the mayor of West Kelowna be set at $58,090 (a 3.1 per cent increase) and $20,501 for councillors (a two per cent increase). Staff again polled the benchmark communities in January 2010, which resulted in a 0.74 per cent increase for councillors (to $20,654 for 2010) and a 4.76 per cent increase for the mayor (to $60,853). The significant jump in the mayor’s salary earlier this year led to a request to staff to review the remuneration policy—the result of which led to Tuesday’s discussion. “From 2009 to 2010, the City of Langley changed its remuneration with a 25 per cent adjustment to council salaries,” said Raymond. “Which caused a shift.” Because Langley is one of the benchmark communities that staff was using to come up with a median wage, that city’s decision to increase its council members’ pay significantly threw off numbers so much that Mayor Doug Findlater’s wage increased by nearly five per cent, according to Raymond.

With no recommendations included, Raymond presented a report to council reviewing remuneration for council members and some ideas as to how West Kelowna could change the way it sets the salaries of elected officials. Four key points were made in the report:

1. Structure: Salary reviews can be figured out internally by staff, through a citizen’s committee, by an outside consultant or some combination of the three.

2. Comparables: The most popular way of comparing salaries from one municipality is to look at population, but council could consider the number of employees in each municipality or municipal assessment bases.

3. Formula: There has to be a way to calculate salaries, whether by taking an average of a sample of other municipalities, setting the mayor’s salary and paying councillors a set percentage of what the mayor receives, or paying a stipend for every meeting attended.

4. Timing: Salaries need to be reviewed at some point and council must decide when that should take place. Raymond noted the most common review time for other municipalities is every three or six years, timed to be done just before an election so that new salaries are put into effect for the newly elected council.

“I don’t favour our existing policy,” said Coun. Rosalind Neis. “I would like to see a locked-in term for three years.” Neis said the biggest problem with taking an average of a group of municipalities is that “there’s no responsibility to stop the continual increase.” “I would consider a citizen’s review of the mayor’s salary and the councillors as a percentage,” said Neis. “I’m not entirely satisfied with the way we’re doing it at the moment,” said Coun. Bryden Winsby. The amount of increase in a year is not big, according to Winsby. “We’re talking optics, how it looks to the community at large.” “I think we’re spending all together too much time on this issue,” said Coun. Duane Ophus. “My preference at this point in time is to do absolutely nothing.”

“The present arrangements don’t work for me,” Findlater said. He added the Langley “anomaly” was a problem and council needs to figure out a way to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Council should also look to see if the chosen benchmark communities are the right ones to use. The regional district had a citizen committee look at work load and it recommended reducing the stipend paid to board directors, according to Findlater. It would be better to look at council pay systemically and “not micromanage it every year,” said Findlater.

Neis put forward a motion that a citizen committee be established to review mayor and councillor salaries. The total increase for six councillors last year was under $1,000, said Coun. Carol Zanon, who told her fellow council members that it would cost “a couple of hundred dollars” per meeting if a citizen committee were set up. Winsby moved to table the motion for the time being but the motion failed due to a tie vote. “I don’t want people making policy for us. We set the policy,” said Winsby. The original motion from Neis was put to a vote and it also failed by a tie vote. That was quickly followed by a motion from Ophus that the whole thing be put off until January 2012, which would include freezing council wages at their current rates. That motion also failed by tie vote.

In the end, three motions were made; three motions failed. Unless something happens in the mean time, staff will bring forward their calculations under the existing policy next January. Coun. Gord Milsom was not present at Tuesday’s meeting, leaving six council members to vote on motions.