St. Albert city council will get a pay raise next term, but not as much as an independent committee recommended.
At a special council meeting Jan. 16, council approved a motion setting the stage for administration to come back May 1 with updated policies to reflect the approved changes.
The changes include raising the base pay of councillors to $45,000 per year up from $36,460 in 2015, and raising the mayor’s base pay to $110,000 per year up from $104,171 in 2015. The Council Remuneration Review Committee had recommended $50,000 per year for councillors and $125,000 for the mayor.
While the base pay will be raised, per-diem payments will be eliminated. Based on per-diem payments in 2015, this would result in a pay increase for councillors but a small pay cut for the mayor.
The main motion, to approve the report with the exception of several recommendations, passed unanimously, but individual changes were more controversial.
The Council Remuneration Review Committee submitted its final report to council Sept. 6, 2016, which included dozens of recommendations in 10 broad categories relating to council pay, benefits and expenses.
At that time council members voted to provide feedback to administration with recommendations of their own, and debate the matter Nov. 21, at which point they again voted to postpone debate until January.
Council members agreed that councillors should continue to be deemed part time, but were split on whether council meeting start times should be moved later in the afternoon or evening as per committee recommendations.
Coun. Cathy Heron moved to remove that recommendation and keep meeting times at 2 p.m. arguing that by pushing the meeting start time later, important decisions could be left until 9 or 10 p.m. when councillors are fatigued.
“You need a fresh perspective and sharp thinking powers,” she said. “We’re running a multi-million-dollar corporation.”
That motion was defeated 4-3 with just Mayor Nolan Crouse and Coun. Wes Brodhead supporting the idea.
Heron also moved to reject the recommendation to do away with city per-diem payments for councillors, arguing some councillors can put in more time on committees than others, and per diems are a good way to compensate for that additional time.
“Those that do the extra work should be compensated for the extra work,” she said.
The motion was likewise defeated 4-3, with only Brodhead and Coun. Bob Russell supporting it.
Coun. Cam MacKay sought to have the size of council increased from seven to nine, with pay cuts for council members to offset the costs, arguing all other Alberta municipalities of more than 60,000 residents have larger councils in order to better represent residents.
“If you look at the metrics and you look at our communities, they certainly support having more councillors,” he said.
Heron asked the motions be split, and the motion increasing the size of council only received support from Coun. Sheena Hughes, and was defeated 5-2.
Council members were more supportive of MacKay’s motions to reduce the recommended base-pay increases from $50,000 to $45,000 and $125,000 to $110,000 for councillors and the mayor respectively.
“I thought the recommendations were a little too much of a percentage increase,” he said.
The councillor-pay motion passed 4-3, with Crouse, Brodhead and Heron opposed, and the mayor-pay motion passed 5-2, with Crouse and Brodhead opposed.
Council salaries will be indexed to the Edmonton Consumer Price Index, and will rise accordingly April 1 of every year.
Brodhead got unanimous approval for his motion to reject the committee’s recommendation to change the way retirement contributions are made, noting the proposed change could result in inequity between council members if they’re already maxing out their contributions in other areas.
“At best there would be different levels of benefit provided by the city,” chief legislative officer Chris Belke confirmed.
Hughes got unanimous approval for her motion to remove the recommendation that council members won’t have their cellphone bills covered if they choose to use a personal phone instead of a city-issued phone, arguing providing an allowance for personal cellphones up to what the city would pay for the city issued phone would be simpler.
“It’s not going to cost the taxpayers any more money, but it simplifies things,” she said.
Council also unanimously approved Osborne’s motion to direct administration to propose a catch-all home-office budget, rather than addressing things like printer, toner, paper and fax machines individually, again with an eye to simplifying policy.
Finally, council unanimously approved to reject the recommendation to implement a new policy as written by the committee – instead administration will draft a new policy to reflect the changes council approved.
The proposed changes won’t be official until council approves new policy documents reflecting the changes, which is expected to take place May 1.
The changes discussed won’t come into effect until after the next council is elected.
Council remuneration was last reviewed in 2012, and the policy had previously been to review compensation every two terms.
This term, council decided to change its policy so that a pay review will occur once a term rather than once every two terms. The change, which Osborne initiated, was in part a reaction to controversy over expenses and the need to clarify some of the policies around them.
Mayor Crouse observed at this week’s meeting that while he didn’t want to “sound bitter,” this whole process to review remuneration came about as a result of Hughes’ PowerPoint presentation accusing him of improperly filing expense claims.
“All of this, because of a PowerPoint presentation in chambers,” he said. “And now we’re going to give ourselves raises.”
Hughes said after the meeting that without an independent audit, which council has not authorized, she didn’t believe Crouse had actually been cleared of anything and that her concern has not been adequately addressed.
“Had there been (an independent audit), we could put this issue to rest. As we haven’t had one, there’s not rest to it,” she said.
