My word, how paycheques for city employees have changed since the 1960s
The search for a book on my book shelves about technical charting of stocks one morning led to an unexpected collapse of materials.
Out of the materials resting on the floor came a black and white photo and two yellowed sheets of paper with some typed information on them.
The photo was of Moose Jaw’s colourful Mayor Scoop Lewry talking on the phone while sucking a cigar. The two sheets of paper contained information with salaries and names of 37 city employees and the mayor’s annual salary.
This information 49 years ago was confidential, sensitive stuff. Not until some 30 years later was the city required to disclose salaries of employees.
Scoop Lewry leaked the information to the media as part of his struggle with city council over the mayor’s salary. In 1969, the full-time mayor was paid a princely $8,220 a year.
The 10-member city council had frozen the mayor’s salary two years in a row by a 6-5 vote, and was headed for a third when he leaked the information.
The reason why six councillors voted to freeze the mayor’s pay was simply stated: we don’t need a full time mayor even if his title is chief executive of the city. Many suspected the real reason for the freeze was politics. Lewry was an NDP socialist too popular to vote out of office. Freezing his salary might end his career. It didn’t work.
Lewry was denied an increase for the third year because he leaked confidential salary information to the press. He went on to serve as mayor in the 1980s as well as the 1960s and 1950s.
Comparing city salaries 49 years ago with modern rates is interesting. Our mayor gets paid $68,800 a year with his salary no longer at the mercy of council and petty politics. The mayor’s salary is pegged to 47 per cent of a Saskatchewan cabinet minister’s salaary. Employee salaries listed in the city’s 2016 public accounts sure are higher than in Lewry’s day.
A general foreman made $7,536 a year, about one-twelfth what a sub-foreman made in 2016.
The city manager’s “secretary” made $4,956 a year compared with $75,000 by the manager’s executive assistant. Three deputy fire chiefs each made $8,386. In 2106 three assistant fire chiefs averaged $105,000 each.
The fire chief was paid $9,972 compared with $137,000 in 2016.
Highest paid job in 1969 was city commissioner, now called city manager, at $18,500. The holder of that seat is now paid just over $198,000.
The city comptroller, equivalent to the city finance director, was paid $10,656. Now that job pays about $140,000. The police chief was paid $11,124 compared with a mod- ern $160,000 salary.
The personnel superintendent/purchasing agent made $9,504. In 2016: $132,000, just for human resources. The 1969 city clerk made $9,947. The city clerk/solicitor makes $148,000 and has a $100,000 a year assistant solicitor.
One hopes my reader(s) found this old data as interesting as I did. I never did find my book on technical charting of stocks.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net