Set remuneration policy proposed

Potential changes to council pay would mean inflation increases, a set policy and a review before future elections, a city committee heard Tuesday.

A report and potential changes to council remuneration in Medicine Hat were promised after the contentious issue was raised in late 2018.

If approved, current rates would stay in place with annual adjustments for inflation, before subsequent review in the last year of a council’s term, and any major change coming into effect after a mayor and council faces election.

“It’s a step forward and depoliticizes it to a large extent,” commissioner Dennis Egert told the corporate services committee, adding that a review of 14 municipalities in Alberta found all had set policies about how to adjust salaries, whereas Medicine Hat’s has been handled on an “ad hoc” basis since the late 1990s.

Since then however, there’s been relatively little change aside from raises based on inflation.

That changed in late 2018 when council approved an administration proposal to raise members’ pay to even out take-home dollars following federal tax changes that reduced a one-third tax-free allowance for local elected officials.

Mayor Ted Clugston and others criticized the press for misrepresenting the issue.

More recently he said that he and council members routinely have foregone adjustments.

At the time of the 2018 vote, administrators promised to bring back a new review of remuneration policy and have it ready one year before the next municipal election, which takes place in October 2021.

That was presented Tuesday to the council’s corporate services committee after it previously went through the administrative committee, made up of senior city hall officials, and council’s administrative and legislative review committee.

Coun. Darren Hirsch is a member of both council committees and said talk about pay puts elected officials in an “uncomfortable spot.”

“It’s unfortunate to say as a councillor, “OK, let’s give ourselves a raise,” he said, stating the study found local officials are paid the median of their counterparts elsewhere in Alberta.

“OK, we’re at about the average, and moving forward it’s based on inflation.”

Adjustments for the consumer price index would take effect Jan. 1 each year, and councillors could opt out, according to the policy.

The annual compensation outlines in a schedule was $135,152 for the mayor and $44,981 for councillors as of March 2020.

A separate benefits and allowances package includes potential health and dental plans, a matching contribution, up to 12 per cent, for self-directed, direct contribution retirement plan.

Coun. Robert Dumanowski, the committee chair, said council remuneration is a tricky subject, but elected officials need some level of compensation for their time and effort.

He also said council members have in the past declined raises, specifically referring to a called-for wage freeze during several budget years.

“We put ourselves on the same line as other union and non-unionized workforce at the city,” he said.