OLDS — Town council has voted to bring the thorny issue of how council members get paid, including whether that should be via a salary, to a future council meeting.
Council made that decision during its July 2 committee of the whole meeting.
A briefing note provided to council members pointed out that of 16 comparator municipalities surveyed, five currently pay their council members a salary.
Of those surveyed communities, the average salary for a councillor last year was $33,428 and the average salary for a mayor was $64,028.
A hypothetical salary model presented would see the total average salary for Olds councillors pegged at $37,132. The mayor’s would be $60,261.
“There is no budgetary impact to switching to a salary model. There would be minimal administrative effort in making this change,” the note said.
The note listed several benefits of going with a salary model.
It said they are:
• Reduced administrative burden on the mayor, councillors, and payroll.
• Avoiding confusion around which events are per-diem (daily compensation for expenses) eligible and which are not.
• Promoting equal distribution of committee work.
• More accurate budgeting/costs.
• An easier model to explain to the public and potential candidates for council.
Drawbacks to proceeding with a salary model listed were:
• Council may have to self-police any attendance issues.
• The system could be open to abuse if a councillor is not concerned about public perception/workload.
Coun. Darren Wilson first raised the issue via a notice of motion back in January. It came up again in the spring.
The July 2 discussion on the idea lasted just under 40 minutes.
As he introduced the topic, chief administrative officer (CAO) Brent Williams noted that a civic committee on remuneration (compensation for serving as a councillor) recommended that the job of councillor – including the mayor -- remain as part-time.
However, Williams said, “the real reality (is) that councillors’ time, (is) getting more and more spent on business of the town; that it’s taking up much more than a part-time job ought to take up.”
Some councillors expressed a desire to see some younger people run for council and worried that part-time compensation might now be enough to attract them to the job, given the hours and duties that are involved.
It was noted that generally speaking, many Olds councillors are retired, and thus have more flexible schedules than younger residents working full-time may have.
Williams raised that issue as well.
“I believe it's a worthwhile goal to keep in mind that the more people we can have interested in running for council, the more engaged our citizenry is,” he said.
“And if that means reducing council's workload as well, I think the salary model would accomplish that a bit better than the current, per diem model.”
Williams said if council does vote to move to a salary payment system, he doesn’t anticipate that it would be implemented until Jan. 1 next year, because time would be needed to rework policy and councillors’ budgets.
The hypothetical model included compensation for sitting on commissions.
Coun. Heather Ryan questioned how that could be figured out fairly. She noted that not all councillors are able to attend everything.
She pointed out that each councillor already receives an honourarium for their service, plus per diem payments for things like participating in committees.
Ryan said when she first considered running for council she checked out the town website, where payments for councillors were posted.
“So there's a lot of things to me that are still a question mark. I cannot support this at all,” Ryan said.
Ryan said the debate “circumvents” the work of the remuneration committee because it was never asked to look at the idea of placing council members on a salary.
Williams said the question was deliberately left out of the committee’s mandate.
“Current policy on council remuneration does not speak to how council gets paid. It's only what it gets paid,” Williams said.
“So the committee's work, even most recently, would still be of value for the next term, because what we're trying to get from the committee is assessing where council should be, how much it should be paid.”
Coun. Harvey Walsh echoed Ryan’s concerns.
Wilson spoke in favour of the salary model, saying it would simplify work for administrative staff.
“I appreciate and understand the comments by Coun. Ryan and Coun. Walsh.
“But again, as the CAO alluded to, I think bringing some certainty to compensation for councillors certainly would potentially go a long way to attracting candidates for the role,” Wilson said.
He picked up another point made by Williams – that in the end, running for and being on council is a public service.
“We don't run (for) municipal positions to get rich. You do it to try and make an impact. You do it perhaps with personal development and growth (in mind),” Wilson said.
“And so it's not always measured in terms of dollars and compensation.”
However, Wilson also saw the need for a “thorough review” of the matter, adding there is “ambiguity” in the idea.
“That certainly needs to be reviewed and crisped up and clarified in terms of some of that compensation between the honorarium or whatever base salary we're going to have, base compensation we’re going to have, and a per diem, based on event attendance,” Wilson said.
“I agree with Coun. Ryan, it's impossible to expect all council to have the same availability for events, so there is some latitude there, while maintaining clarity around the expectations,” he added.
However, Wilson said, if the proposal to move to a salary is defeated, “then so be it. We’ll put a toe tag on this thing and (move it) into the morgue.”
Mayor Judy Dahl supported the salary idea and agreed with Wilson’s comments.
“The benefits on this briefing note are way outweighing the drawbacks. The drawbacks to me -- and I've been mayor for a long time -- are not an issue,” Dahl said.
She also said it’s her belief councillors already do self-police their contributions.
However, she noted that one councillor, Wanda Blatz, was not present for the discussion and suggested the proposal be brought back later, when all councillors are in attendance.
To borrow a favourite phrase of Wilson’s, Coun. James Cummings said payment system for Olds councillors needs to be “quick, nimble and agile’ to deal with unexpected things that might arise.
He said expense accounts can be there for unexpected expenses.
He said if council does seriously consider the salary model, he’d like to see the system revised to create “an entire remuneration package.”
“I'm sure we do ask council or our administration to bring this back, it will be brought back as a complete package, covering all of the questions that were raised today, both the what-ifs and what-nots,” Cummings said.
Deputy mayor Dan Daley agreed with Wilson’s assessment of the matter. He said such a system would also provide transparency regarding how councillors are compensated for their time and service to the public.
He liked the self-policing concept and said the distribution of committee work, etc. would “even out and give us all a level playing field for our workloads.”
“When we talk about recruiting a new councillor, recruit or elect, you know, what is the workload of a councillor?
What (are) the expectations of a person in the role of a councillor or mayor,” Daley asked.
“At this point right now, I feel it's quite vague, and so this would, I think, would draw some lines and some guardrails (around) what that position would hold.”
“Good discussion,” Daley said as the debate wound up. “It's a tough discussion, but it was a good discussion, and I think everybody for the input, really good.”
