A commentary by a Victoria city councillor.
To the residents and taxpayers of Victoria, let this be your (un)official notice of motion regarding the 25 per cent pay increase voted on by the majority of Victoria council on March 14.
On that day, you didn’t get the courtesy of seeing the motion (an amendment to be precise) that took everyone by surprise.
I read the 20-page report by Drive Organizational Development Ltd. giving us comparisons to the pay of other councils. There was no recommendation, so that was left to us councillors to decide our own pay.
Fair enough, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to decide on our pay increases, right then and there with no advance notice.
However, councillors Jeremy Caradonna, Matt Dell, Susan Kim, Krista Loughton and Dave Thompson decided it was time to seize the day and vote councillors an increase from $52,420 to $65,252, effective May 1. The mayor, Coun. Marg Gardiner and I voted against this. Coun. Chris Coleman was absent.
Mayor Marianne Alto practically begged (my word) Caradonna to table his amendment so council and Victoria residents could give the huge pay increase some sober thought.
Alas, he and the other four insisted on getting this done, as quickly as possible.
However, officially, it’s not a done deal. There is still time for council to give that sober second thought, especially after the tsunami of criticism.
Due to procedural restrictions, I think the best approach is to ask the majority of council to refer this matter back to staff to follow the actual recommendations set out in the MNP Governance Review document submitted to the previous council on July 18, 2022.
For example, while the March 14 amendment by Caradonna states “the MNP Review confirms that City Council is a full-time job,” that is only true if you accept that 25 to 30 hours is in fact “full time.”
On page 27, section 5.5.2 of MNP, it’s noted a review of the previous council work “is approximately 25-30 hours per week, based on 50 weeks per year, before considering conferences or professional development, additional preparation time on complex issues, or miscellaneous administrative tasks. In B.C. a role of 30 hours per week or more is considered full time.”
If you are a unionized employee with the City of Victoria, please do not bring this to the next round of bargaining. This new definition of “full time” does not apply to you. It only applies to us hard-working city councillors.
There is also comment about the gigantic pay raises of municipalities within our region. Last week, Caradonna wrote in the TC, “In 2022, Oak Bay voted itself a 57 per cent increase, while Sooke council approved a 27 per cent increase. In 2023, Colwood council voted itself a 57 per cent wage increase, while Central Saanich approved a 43 per cent increase.”
However, note the actual dollars (some of these dollar figures are prior to the annual CPI increases). Oak Bay’s mayor went from $34,415 to $55,785 and council from $14,604 to $23,713. Sooke’s mayor went from $31,500 to $47,432 and council from $15,750 to $20,062. Colwood’s mayor went from $32,992 to $55,785 and council from $16,496 to $27,892. (I had trouble figuring out Central Saanich’s 43% pay increases.)
For Oak Bay, Sooke and Colwood, all these increases came after the next election, leaving it to voters to decide. And in Colwood, it was an election issue with the new council responding by taking their increase down from the proposed 85 per cent increase to a more “modest” 57 per cent increase. A lot, but as you can see above, it’s not a lot of money for mayor and council.
Victoria’s mayor is paid $131,050; however she is not getting a raise under any of these resolutions.
Getting back to Victoria, the MNP consultants reviewed the pay of similar cities, including Chilliwack, Kamloops, Nanaimo, North Vancouver District, Delta and New Westminster in which they noted for “the City of Victoria, average mayor remuneration is 6.7 per cent higher and council remuneration is 2.4 per cent higher.”
And when they swapped out Chilliwack for Saanich, they found Victoria’s “average mayor remuneration was 7% higher and council was 4% higher.”
Hence, as the MNP report states, I will be moving an amendment to:
“Strike an independent task force to review considerations of time commitment, principles for appropriate comparators and benchmark level (percentile) for an ongoing review framework, per diems for committee appointments and conferences, and diversity.” (see MNP page 33, 5.2.6)
Wish me, and you Victoria taxpayers, luck.
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