Stephen Vance, Editor
One of the most common criticisms I hear about our members of municipal council is also the most inaccurate criticism I hear – that our councillors make too much money, and they should take a pay cut before ever raising taxes.
“Council should slash their pay before increasing taxes,” is a commonly held belief, particularly around budget time. “Our councillors are over-paid,” is another commonly heard complaint. I’ve also heard a time or two that “councillors are just in it for the money.”
All such statements are simply untrue.
Though it’s been reported in the past, it seems that there are still folks who don’t realize how little we actually pay these elected representatives, particularly given the responsibility of the positions, not to mention the round the clock flack that members of council often must endure from angry ratepayers.
Each year, as part of ensuring transparency and accountability, the remuneration paid to members of council is released in a publicly available report, and each year, there is really nothing to report, aside from the fact that there is nothing to report. This year’s report was released at the February 29 meeting of council.
Last year (2015), Meaford’s five councillors each earned $20,100 ($13,399.98 taxable, $6,700.02 non-taxable), while the Deputy Mayor earned $22,110 ($14,739.96 taxable, $7,370.04 non-taxable), and our Mayor took home $27,135 ($18,090 taxable, $9,045 non-taxable).
The total cost for council remuneration and and their sundry expenses in 2015 was a whopping $153,945.77 – for all seven members of council.
So in 2015 our Mayor earned $27,135 from her position on council. What did we pay our mayor a decade ago?
Between 2005 and 2013, salaries for Meaford council members remained unchanged with the Mayor earning $27,000, the Deputy Mayor taking home $22,000, and the five Councillors each receiving $20,000 per year for the part-time position.
Beginning in 2013, councillors began receiving an annual increase in their remuneration based on the Statistics Canada consumer price index, which as of 2015 had skyrocketed the mayor’s annual remuneration by a whopping $135 per year (the horror!)
Think about that for a moment. In 2005 we paid our mayor $27,000 – so in the past decade, the amount we pay our mayor has increased $135, or $13.50 per year. Councillors are now earning an extra $100 per year compared to a decade ago.
That doesn’t really sound like pigs feeding at the public trough, yet people routinely assert that our local politicians are somehow robbing us blind.
For some perspective, with her reported $151,146.80 salary plus $1,203.17 in taxable benefits in 2014 (the most recent available data), Meaford’s CAO earns pretty much what all seven members of our council earn combined. (The CAO would remind us that in 2014, because of the way the calendar worked, there was an extra pay period in 2014 that artificially inflated municipal staff salaries that year – meaning in short, that in a typical year, her salary would have been slightly less.)
With any municipal government there are always a number of legitimate complaints that can be made, there are always valid suggestions of areas in which to cut costs, and we don’t have to agree with a suggested cost-cutting measure for it to be a valid suggestion.
While I have little time for people convinced that our councillors are somehow enriching themselves on our backs, I can fully understand people that are unhappy with the fact that just a few years ago not a single member of Meaford’s staff earned that magic $100,000 per year to land them on the provincial ‘sunshine list’, yet last year there were a total of six staffers on that list. I can listen to and respect the argument that Meaford might not necessarily need or want all of the costly upper management positions that have slowly crept in to our administration. I can appreciate people suggesting that we have too many people employed with the municipality.
Some arguments I might disagree with, while others I do agree, but these at least are valid start-points for discussion and debate. A start point that suggests that our elected councillors earn too much money, or that they should take pay cuts before raising our taxes is just silly, and there’s nothing to discuss or debate when the start point is silly. If our members of council slashed their annual pay by half, our municipality would save a measly $75,000 that would reduce our taxes by somewhere around half a percentage point. In municipal budget terms, our councillors literally earn peanuts.
On the other hand, Meaford’s top six staffers earned nearly $700,000 in 2014, and if people want to discuss and debate the merits of spending that kind of money on six employees, I can respect that, I can understand it, and I can engage in that discussion.
But don’t tell me that seven people earning a whopping $154,000 per year combined is a problem. The fact is, in a fair and just world, they should likely be earning much more, but in the political game, even small increases cause outrage these days, so most municipal politicians across this province, particularly those in smaller municipalities, have learned to avoid any talk of increases for themselves, as insignificant as they would be to municipal budgets.
Would you take on the job of a councillor for $20,000 per year? I’m not so sure I would.
