Mayor, councillors to ring in new year with slight pay cut

‘It’s warranted for Canada’s highest-paid council,’ says rookie councillor Farkas

For the second year in a row, Calgary’s mayor and councillors will see their paycheques shrink ever so slightly in the new year.

Annual salaries for the mayor and 14 councillors, which sit at $200,747 and $113,416, respectively, are set to decrease 0.08 per cent on Jan. 1, based on an annual automatic adjustment tied to Alberta average weekly earnings reports.

Councillors will earn $90.73 less next year, while the mayor is in store for a $160.60 annual salary reduction, meaning the new 2018 annual salary for Calgary city councillors will be $113,325.63, plus benefits and expenses, while Mayor Naheed Nenshi will earn $200,586.40.

“We don’t control our pay,” Nenshi said Thursday. “I think that’s appropriate that the pay for politicians shouldn’t be set by politicians. It is set by this automatic process and it’s directly tied to the health of the economy.”

Ward 11 Coun. Jeromy Farkas praised the effective pay freeze as appropriate given the economic hardships Calgarians continue to face.

“It’s warranted for Canada’s highest paid city council to lead by example,” Farkas said in a news release Thursday.

Salary adjustments for Calgary’s elected officials have been automatic for several years and are based on the same percentage increase or decrease as Alberta average weekly earnings reports by Statistics Canada for the preceding year’s September to September period.

Ward 12 Coun. Shane Keating said while many citizens have their own personal views regarding how much politicians should earn, the current formula tied to weekly earnings makes sense.

“We have no say whatsoever, whether it’s an increase or a decrease, and we never should have a say,” Keating said. “It reflects what’s happening in the economy.”

A five-member citizen committee examined the formula in 2017 and said it should stay in place, though the volunteers recommend several other changes, including having council vote annually on whether to accept the pay hike or cut, eliminating transition allowances for elected officials and chopping the mayor’s paycheque by six per cent or $12,123.

Most of the compensation review committee’s recommendations were turfed by council, though elected officials did vote in May in favour of cutting the mayor’s pay by six per cent.

The committee examined council pay in other municipalities and found that at the time that Calgary’s mayor and councillors earned the most of seven cities profiled, though Edmonton council receives a hefty tax break that pushes their net salary higher than Calgary’s.

The tiny 0.08 per cent pay cut comes after council salaries decreased 2.49 per cent in 2017, based on the same formula.

For years before that, the formula saw council pay increase, though council members opted to forgo an automatic pay hike and freeze their own salaries in 2014.

Councillor salaries jumped 19 per cent, from $97,551 in 2010 to $116,312 in 2016. Over the same time period, the mayor’s salary climbed 23 per cent from $177,100 to $218,285.

The 2018 pay cut comes as contracts with the city’s largest workforces — the inside and outside workers — expire in January.

Calgary had one of the country’s top-performing economies in 2014 when the city agreed to give its unions a 12.5 per cent pay hike over four years.

After the ink dried, the price of oil plummeted, layoffs began and Calgary plunged into the worst recession in a generation.

Farkas said he’s hopeful the fact council isn’t getting a pay raise will mean a change in “tone and a return to reality” when it comes to contract discussions.

But Nenshi said the slight pay cut for elected officials means “pretty much nothing,” as union negotiations take place.

“The whole point of not having politicians make these decisions is precisely to not politicize them that way,” he said.

“However, it is clear that since our salaries are tied to the average salaries, and that the public sector wage agreements have been well above average the last few years, that it is time to bring that back into balance.”