Raises Proposed for Mayor & Councillors In Coldstream

Vernon, BC, Canada / 1075 Beach Radio Vernon Tom Mark June 20, 2018 09:55 am
Raises could be in store for the mayor and councillors in Coldstream for the next council. A motion going to council next week proposes raises of 11 per cent for councillors and 13 per cent for the Mayor to make up for a tax free allowance being taken away next year under the federal budget. Mayor Jim Garlick says careful thought was given to this. “We didn’t want to be seen by the public as oh you’re just taking advantage of this and bumping the amount up considerably because of the uh, once our tax being removed.”
Garlick says that essentially is downloading from the federal government. “What they’re going to be doing is taking those taxes from what’s paid to the local politicians and use at the federal level rather than them being kept at the local level because then you wouldn’t pay that out to the politicians.”

Currently, one third of their salary is tax free. “That was seen to cover expenses at local government levels as far as driving, like day-to-day expenses, not going to conventions and that, but day-to-day expenses. If you had to go out and meet with people, if you had to buy somebody lunch.” The proposal would see the Mayor’s salary rise from 30 thousand dollars a year to 34 thousand, while councillor’s salaries would increase to 15 thousand from thirteen and a half thousand dollars. This would go into effect January 1st of 2019.
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Staff Recommendation from COW Meeting:

http://vernonblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/coldstream-council-remuneration.html
Current Council direction is to amend the Council Remuneration Bylaw to increase the Mayor
compensation to $30,000 and the Councillor remuneration to $13,500, both effective January 1, 2019. These amendments were determined after the compensation review completed in 2016. Should Council wish to adjust the compensation for Council members to account for the nonaccountable allowance being eliminated, then the Mayor remuneration would be set at $31,200 and the Councillor remuneration $13,740 both effective January 1, 2019.