Salary costs are up again at Vernon City Hall. The city's annual report show 17.6 million dollars was spent on staff last year, up about 800-thousand dollars from the year before. The city had 315 full time employees, 16 more than the year before. Mayor Wayne Lippert tells KISS FM, one reason is the city has taken on some services previously run by NORD. "Yes the full time equivalency has gone up, but sources of revenue that we're getting back have definately gone up as well to offset positions like that." Councillor Bob Spiers is concerned net salaries have risen from 60 percent of tax revenue in 2005, to 77 percent, which he calls unsustainable. "The city must look to measures to reduce expenses and/or increase revenues from other sources." 66 city workers make 75-thousand dollars or more, including 13 over 100-thousand. Administrator Leon Gous is the highest paid at $153,733 in earnings, plus $14,223 in expenses.--------
2010 Annual Report - 4.40 MB
4 comments:
To quote Jack Nicholson, as the Joker in Batman;
"This town needs an enema."
What services did Vernon take over from NORD? Fire Dispatch is the only one that I heard about and Vernon already had the contract (and staff) for it.
Every year the City claims it's not hiring new staff, yet every year they do.
According to my admittedy poor recollection, NORD did not accept Vernon's "offer" to provide Fire Dispatch for the region because NORD found a better deal elsewhere.
So instead of sharing in the savings and operating a regional fire dispatch service, Vernon taxpayers are funding that service solely for themselves, by themselves.
Same as the handful of NORD services we took over a few years back - tourism and ec dev - although other jurisdictions inevitably receive some benefit from these services, only we Vernon taxpayers pay for them. Now that's dollars & $ense for ya!
You can thank our wonderful Mayor for treating NORD as a service competitor instead of a partner.
Is it any wonder we're having budget issues?
Anyone in Coldstream or the rural areas who is asking for amalgamation should give their heads a good shake - do you really want to be governed by Vernon's out of control bureaucracy and pay even more taxes??
Last anonymous poster.
What makes you think that Vernon's bureaucracy would get the nod come amalgamation?
I say put it all out for tender and pick the low bidder. If it's good enough for building our streets, and infrastructure it better be bloody well good enough for civil servants.
Or is the cart driving the horse again.
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