‘Shooting ourselves in the foot,’ with wage controls
Proposal will award $77,000 in raises to 14 non-unionized staff
Pegging local government employees’ salaries to those earned by colleagues elsewhere is driving up the cost of labour, says a Penticton city councillor.
“It’s not tied to any type of performance or anything, it’s just trying to keep up,” Helena Konanz said Thursday at a meeting of the Regional District of OkanaganSimilkameen board, on which she also serves as a director.
She was one of two members who voted against a proposal that will award $77,000 in raises to 14 nonunionized staff members as a result of a recent wage survey that found RDOS employees were falling behind their peers elsewhere in the Southern Interior.
The review was triggered in part by difficulties hiring a new RDOS finance manager, according to chief administrative officer Bill Newell, who said several candidates were offered the position, but all declined.
With two other key jobs — manager of development services and manager of public works — also vacant or about to be vacant, he urged the board to go ahead with the wage lifts.
“We don’t want to be leading, but at the same time we have to be competitive to get staff and to keep staff,” said Newell.
The wage survey is required every three years by a board policy, which also specifies pay for non-unionized staff should not exceed the median of comparison local governments.
Konanz noted the last such survey in 2013 resulted in a similar $80,000 boost to non-union salaries. She then suggested asking the Union of B.C. Municipalities to work on a different method of setting wages to gain control of escalating labour costs.
“We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re all chasing after the same thing and salaries are going higher and higher and higher, and, again, not based on anything other than we’re stealing employees from each other,” she said.
Penticton Mayor Andrew Jakubeit cast the other dissenting vote, citing the other “financial realities” facing the RDOS besides lagging staff wages.
“The bar just keeps on rising and we have to try to manage that,” he said.
Other directors, though, suggested that keeping wages competitive is simply a smart investment.
“We want that good person, because in the long run it saves us money, time and allows us to provide good services to our residents,” said Michael Brydon, the director for Area F (West Bench).
Newell said a $50,000 contingency was set aside in the 2017 budget to cover the wage increases, while the balance should be made up by savings from the vacancies.
The RDOS has seven managers overseeing approximately 50 employees.
The seven managers are split into two salary bands with maximums of $106,000 and $96,000, respectively. Their raises will work out to an average of $6,500 each in 2017.