Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star Published: November 19, 2009 6:00 PM
Local politicians want answers after Okanagan Regional Library staff got hefty pay hikes. The North Okanagan Regional District board is demanding ORL chairman Ted Bacigalupo appear before it to justify a two-year, eight per cent salary increase for professional librarians and nine per cent for executive director Lesley Dieno. “That’s a complete disconnect and a sense of entitlement,” said director John Trainor. “The recession has had a devastating impact in the Okanagan and major employers are struggling. I’ve heard of families where both wage earners have lost their jobs.” Dieno’s annual salary will go from $121,000 to $131,000. A total of $72,000 has been set aside over two years to bump wages for about eight administration employees. “If it keeps going like this, where will it end? In these economic times, it’s difficult to take,” said Eugene Foisy, a NORD director.
A majority of the ORL board decided to increase salaries based on a consultant’s report to look at compensation. “The consultant’s report is somewhat self-serving,” said director Mike Macnabb, who as NORD’s ORL representative voted against the higher wages. The goal of the expanded compensation is to retain staff as well as attract new employees. But Macnabb questions if that’s necessary. “How many people have left the library because of their salary? Nobody,” he said. ORL officials defend the salary increases. “We are trying to get our salaried people to the middle of the pack,” said Noreen Guenther, vice-chairwoman, of the library sector across B.C. “If you don’t keep up with the numbers, there will be a big hit all at once. We need to keep competitive in the region.” When it comes to the four per cent (each over two years) for professional librarians, Guenther s ays paramedics recently got three per cent. “When staff retires, it could be difficult to attract new people,” she said. Guenther added that Dieno has considerable responsibilities for a system that covers the Okanagan, Shuswap and Similkameen valleys. “If you look at chief executive officers at other jurisdictions in the valley, it’s in line.”
Support also came from Maria Besso, Coldstream’s ORL representative. “We want to keep good staff. It’s a very efficiently run library board,” said Besso. Besso admits that many residents may find the wage hikes difficult to accept. “It’s sad the economy is so bad but we felt the increase is justified and it’s within our budget,” she said. “It was a really tough decision and it wasn’t taken lightly.”
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Morning Star Editorial Nov. 19 Library wage hikes out of touch
Okanagan Regional Library officials need to go to their local branch and pull a dictionary off the shelf. The word they should be looking up is optics. Because the decision to bestow significant salary increases on senior staff and professional librarians is a classic example of poor optics. How are taxpayers supposed to accept a nine per cent hike for executive director Lesley Dieno when many of them have lost their jobs during the recession? And for those still working, there was no nine per cent hike. Instead, either salaries stalled or they shrunk. Other jurisdictions have tightened their belts during these tough financial times but ORL’s 2010 budget is climbing by a whopping 5.78 per cent. But the most troubling fact is ORL officials have been crying poor. They threatened that the Oyama branch would close and that all libraries would shut down for a week during the summer because the provincial government slashed its grant. If things were truly that dire, how can ORL’s board of directors raises their hands in favour of such rich wage hikes? Couldn’t that money be better spent towards programs and services?
Yes there is a need to try and retain staff and attract new workers, but just because other jurisdictions have a certain compensation range, doesn’t mean that is appropriate for Okanagan taxpayers to feed the same spectrum here. And even if a target is identified, not everything can be done at once. What ever happened to a gradual approach? Ultimately, the actions of ORL will leave residents with the perception that the global meltdown has changed nothing for the bureaucracy.
2 comments:
Guenther and Besso should join the real world.Besso should remember the loss of good paying jobs at the glass plant and Guenther should remember the fight to stop the creation of jobs in Lake Country ie a Gaol.These women just want to get their pictures in the newspaper! Don't know why!
Anybody else out there read the other article about the ORL budget. That's the real story. Apparently they are needing to cut funding to summer reading programs, babytime programs and not mailing overdue notices if phone and e-mail info is available. While the latter makes business sense, one wonders just how much these other programs could possibly cost. One also wonders about politicians making decisions to cut programs for the public like this, and seemingly giving the money instead to an overpaid bureaucrat, because that person may leave and get a better paying job elsewhere. Where? BC Rail, where they can get a high salary to administer 30 km of track?
This is faulty logic and does not serve the public interest. I wonder how many moms that rely on those summer reading programs get out and vote?
I also wonder about the value in services to the public that are lost because these politicians give the money instead to their overpaid lapdogs. This question needs to be asked come election time. But it also needs to be asked at every budget deliberation.
I perceive this as a growing problem, especially in bloated bureaucracies like IHA. How much value do administrators add to the system? It's a question that needs to be asked, and soon.
C'mon politicians. Serve the public interest and quit speculating about what-ifs and keep the money in the service to the public, instead of fat-cats wallets.
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