What’s a municipal politician worth? That is a dangerous question that might incite unprintable responses. Nonetheless, we shall take our chances and explore the question at hand.
The council remuneration review committee thinks St. Albert politicians are worth more than they are making now. In fact, the committee recommends that councillors be paid 27 per cent more in base pay, and the mayor should be paid 17 per cent more. If council agrees with the committee, the new council that will be elected next year will be the beneficiary.
The committee report notes that one of the guiding principles for this was keeping salaries in line with other comparable Alberta communities. Another guiding principle was to attract competent individuals “who are in the prime of their careers. The remuneration strategy for city council should reflect a need to lead the market and attract those individuals to public service. These positions should not only be for the wealthy, retired or activists.”
We’re not sure who penned these principles, but we question the logic. Why does St. Albert have to compete with Strathcona County for council pay? If the latter pays more, will St. Albert lose good candidates because they’ll move where the money is? Furthermore, is a higher level of pay really going to attract better candidates? Elected office is all about serving the community, not collecting a paycheque. Councillor or mayor remuneration should be the last reason anyone runs for office.
The committee also suggested that per diems, daily meeting fees council members get to charge in some cases, be eliminated.
The range of council per diems collected varies wildly. Mayor Nolan Crouse received $31,200 in 2015, while Coun. Bob Russell received $0. Coun. Cathy Heron received $6,797, while Coun. Sheena Hughes collected $400. Why there is such a discrepancy is a topic for another day, but one question that begs to be asked is: Will the number of meetings, workshops, conferences, etc. attended by councillors drop if there’s no extra pay?
Let’s not forget that the report indicates the councillor job is part-time, about 20 to 30 hours per week. If we use an average of 25 hours, it means that the average councillor would make about $38 an hour. According to the Alberta government’s 2015 wage and salary survey, the average hourly wage in the province, across all regions and industries, is $29.96 per hour.
We live in trying economic times where businesses are forced to lay off staff, shorten work weeks and ask employees to take wage rollbacks. A wage increase is a foreign concept to most Albertans right now. The province’s debt is ballooning and taxes are increasing. Councillors should take into account the economic pressures felt by constituents and the reasons they ran for office before casting their votes to increase their salaries.
