EDITORIAL – An awkward time to bring up the issue of City council paycheques

 An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

THIS COULD be fun.

The matter of City council paycheques comes up for discussion at next week’s regular meeting. The proposal in front of the council will be to convert the existing remuneration policy into a remuneration bylaw “thereby increasing transparency regarding Council member compensation, clarifying applicable remuneration and expense processes, strengthening administrative certainty and accountability, and establishing a clear and consistent regulatory framework.”

But that’s not really the interesting part. It’s the fact that the subject of council paycheques comes up just a couple of months before the next civic election.

Whether by policy or bylaw, municipal councils set their own rates of pay, usually on an annual basis. Administration presents a proposal based on this and that, and the council decides whether to accept or alter it. It normally comes up earlier in the year, but then there’s this matter of converting the policy to a bylaw….

The bylaw coming in front of Kamloops lawmakers pegs the pay for councillors at $57,140.05, compared to $55,651 in the year ending December 2025. The mayor is supposed to get $142,850.13 but, of course, that’s minus sanction deductions in the case of the current mayor, which have brought his annual stipend to just $81,000 last year and considerably less this year.

The amount paid councillors is set at 40 per cent of the mayor’s rate. (That system was established several councils ago when councillors came up with the idea of setting their own pay as a percentage of the mayor’s. That way, they figured they could focus the public’s attention on what the mayor gets rather than themselves. When it was first implemented, I’m pretty sure the number was 30 per cent.)

In addition to their stipends, council members get a City cellphone, a laptop and a chance to opt into health benefits.

The new bylaw, once adopted, bumps the maximum expense allowance for each councillor from $5,000 to $8,000. The expense account is used for conference fees, travel, hotels, meals, training and such. The rationale for the proposed expense increase is inflation.

Council members who sit on the TNRD board, which is most of them, receive an additional $18,140. Of course, the TNRD will also be bumping up its pay rates next year (and the TNRD board is well known for being generous with itself) so it makes for a pretty nifty payday.

Politicians always dislike having to discuss in public how much to pay themselves, especially close to elections. It’s likely, then, council will brush by the question of paydays and simply approve first readings of the bylaw without much discussion.

The next full-scale review of what council members are paid will be due Jan. 1. It seems doubtful, though, that the public and newcomer candidates will wait until then to start talking about it.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.