Three city councillors are not in favour of giving themselves a pay raise, at least not all at once.
At its Mar. 25 meeting, council heard that Kelowna’s remuneration has fallen significantly behind comparable municipalities.
A recent review of 12 municipalities by the City of Victoria identified Kelowna mayor’s remuneration to be lower than all municipalities except Kamloops.
Councillor remuneration, as a base percentage (35 per cent) of the mayor’s remuneration and in dollars, was last.
A staff report recommends the mayor’s salary be increased from $126,497 to $145,200, and councillor salaries be hiked from $42,991 to $58,080.
Those salaries are the 60th percentile of the 12 communities in the City of Victoria study.
“Giving ourselves such a substantial raise doesn’t seem right,” said Coun. Rick Webber.
While supporting the mayor’s increase, and agreeing that salaries were falling behind, Webber suggested there may be a better process for the taxpayer than approving the hike all at once.
“I’m against the motion as it is right now.”
Coun. Mohini Singh agreed.
“I would be in support of a modest increase and then let the next council make a decision on how much of an increase would be appropriate.”
Previous councils, in their last year of a term, have appointed a community task force to research remuneration increases for incoming councils after an election.
The last time that was done was in 2011.
“Our experience with a number of them prior to that had not been overly positive,” noted Stephen Fleming with the city clerk’s office.
He said subsequent councils decided against a task force and remuneration was tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Vancouver.
“We became aware early last year, or late 2022, that the gap was starting to widen with that formula.”
Mayor Tom Dyas said it is not an easy decision to make.
“If we want the best individuals in these chairs in the future…it’s something that we need to do so that at least we’re on par with regards to communities throughout the province.”
Several councillors noted that residents were shocked to find out how little they are paid compared to the work they do.
Coun. Maxine DeHart pointed out that councillors are away from their families, or those who are still working, their jobs, on a regular basis to attend to their duties.
“Clearly council puts in more than 30 per cent time compared with a mayor,” Coun. Luke Stack agreed. “As our city has grown, become more complex, much larger population, the job’s bigger.”
Coun. Gord Lovegrove said mayor and councillor positions need to be paid fairly, and suggested an amendment that the remuneration increase become effective for the next council, however, it went no further.
Council voted in favour of the remuneration increases recommended by staff with Lovegrove, Singh and Webber opposed.
Coun. Loyal Wooldridge was not present for the meeting.
Council still needs to pass a bylaw for the increase to take effect, which will be done at a future council meeting.
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