Next raise will put councilllors on Sunshine List
Compensation for 23 seats has jumped by more than $12,000 over past decade
Ottawa’s 23 city councillors are inching closer to the six-figure club and giving Mayor Jim Watson some company on the annual Sunshine List.
Each councillor pulled in $99,647 in 2016, a hair away from hitting the $100,000 figure that triggers a line on the province’s register of top earners. Watson made $178,204 in salary last year.
The salary and benefit totals for 2016 are in a report published ahead of a finance and economic development committee meeting next Wednesday.
Council members don’t know yet what kind of salary bump they’ll get in 2017. The city’s human resources director, Marianne Phillips, said the increase will be determined later this year.
In 2013, council decided to simply give itself annual salary increases that mirror those of management and professional staff. The automatic cost-of-living increases take the controversy out of salary hikes since the issue doesn’t have to come to council each year, or even each four-year term.
Council salaries were frozen in 2012, followed by increases of 1.93 per cent in each of 2013 and 2014 and two per cent in each of 2015 and 2016.
By comparison, Toronto city councillors will make $111,955 in 2017. According to the latest census, and the City of Toronto’s population is 2.7 million.
Councillors in Mississauga each made $84,173 in 2015, according to the most recent salary figures available from that city. The population of Mississauga was 721,599 in 2016. The City of Ottawa’s population was 934,243 in 2016.
Municipal politicians in Ottawa have received steady salary increases. Ottawa councillors each made $87,500 in 2007. The 2013 salary report indicated each councillor made $93,986 that year.
Their growing salary isn’t lost on them.
“For that kind of coin, people better see the work in the community and at the council table,” Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney said.
Bay Coun. Mark Taylor said he respects that $100,000 is a lot of money but he believes residents are receiving good political service from city hall.
“I would argue taxpayers are getting pretty good value for money in terms of the representation they get,” Taylor said.
Council salaries can be a contentious issue. On one hand, council members are elected, in part, to restrain costs to taxpayers.
But a councillor’s job is a fulltime gig in Ottawa with demands at night and on weekends. The city wants to make the council positions attractive for interested candidates.
There are other perks of the job, including benefits, travel allowances, a $250,000 office budget and regular invitations to bake sales.