How much are you paying your municipal councillor, mayor, or warden?

How much money does your municipal councillor make to represent you? What about the mayor, or the warden? Does the remuneration reflect the workload?

What municipal politicians get paid varies from town to town and municipality to municipality. And mayors and wardens are usually paid considerably more than councillors.

The responsibilities of municipal councillors in Nova Scotia are many, and most towns or municipalities do try to reflect that in annual remunerations paid to councillors, mayors, and wardens.

The process is outlined in Nova Scotia’s Municipal Government Act that strictly regulates what towns, counties, districts, and villages can do - and what they can’t do.

Setting that annual stipend is up to each municipal unit and outlined in Part 1, Section 23 of the MGA and is titled ‘Council may make policies.’ That section also covers expenses, plus mileage -- including mileage to and from council meetings.

One interesting subsection allows the municipal unit to deduct from the stipend if a council member misses more than three council or committee meetings in a year.

In the graphic to the right the Annapolis Valley Register collected some raw data and in simple terms did the math to see how much you pay your councillor.

Go to: http://nslegislature. ca/ legc/ statutes/ municipal%20government.pdf