OLDS — Another aspect of remuneration – how town council gets paid for the work it does – is expected to come back before town council later this year.
That discussion is around whether councillors should be paid by salary or perhaps continue to receive honourariums and per diem payments instead.
Council earlier agreed that on June 10 it would discuss a report received May 13 from the Citizens’ Committee on Council Remuneration (CCCR).
The salary issue came up during council’s May 27 meeting. After about 20 minutes of discussion, councillors voted to have administrative staff bring that particular issue back to a future committee of the whole meeting.
A committee of the whole meeting is when councillors convene as a committee rather than formally as council. The next committee of the whole meeting is scheduled for July 2.
The question of whether councillors should be paid a salary was spurred back in February when Coun. Darren Wilson filed a notice of motion to discuss the matter.
During the May 27 meeting, chief administrative officer Brent Wilson and corporate services director Sheena Linderman told council that moving to a salary would have no impact on budget.
Administrative staff would simply add up all the honouraria, per diems councillors collectively have and divide equally.
However, several councillors, including Harvey Walsh, Heather Ryan and James Cummings, didn’t think that was fair, because some councillors attend more meetings, etc. than others.
Ryan said she needed more information before coming to a decision.
She also said there are tax implications in the decision.
“I don’t know about some of the other people that are on commissions, but I have a separate tax form that comes to me from my commissions and how does that balance out at the end of the year when you’re on salary,” Ryan asked.
Mayor Judy Dahl, along with councillors Wanda Blatz and Wilson expressed support for the salary model.
Dahl expressed the hope of encouraging more young people to run for council. She said she’d talked to a few people who had indicated interest in possibly doing so in the future.
“I’ve talked to a couple, and they’ve said they’d prefer a salary model because then they’re guaranteed that they know what they’re doing,” she said. “It’s just much easier for their life and their families.”
Blatz said the issue is a complicated one and thus, a “fulsome discussion” should be held on the matter.
Ryan, Daley and Wilson agreed with that suggestion.
“I don’t know whether we’re going to come to a consensus here today,” Coun. Dan Daley said. “I think this is a lengthy topic area that needs to have some thorough discussion, as councillor Blatz has recommended.”
Initally, Wilson had expressed hope that council would make a decision and not be “kicking the can farther down the road.”
“To me, this meets everything that I like in the salary model in terms of efficiency and removing low value workload,” Wilson said.
In the end though, he advanced the motion to move it to a future committee of the whole meeting.
Wilson agreed with other speakers that because councillors attend to town business on a part-time basis and different councillors have different amounts of time to devote to the job, compensation may never be exactly equal for all.
“I certainly don’t have an issue with putting a motion to bring it back to a future committee of the whole meeting, but just to be open-minded,” Wilson said.
“We have asked our people, the people of the town, our citizens, our taxpayers, to take on a lot of change, whether that’s around zoning, whether that’s around parking, whether that’s around high-density housing.
“To me, here’s an opportunity for council to look at a change and think, not so much outside the box, but a different way of doing things.”
Chief administrative officer Brent Williams said administrative staff weren’t necessarily looking for a decision May 27.
Moving the issue to a committee of the whole meeting gives them an opportunity to bring the matter back with more information for councillors to help them make decision, he said.
