Raises approved for CRD senior managers

• Hikes biased toward upper end, critics say • Directors also vote themselves a raise

Capital Regional District senior managers, already making between $107,700 and $268,200 a year, will be getting a significant salary bump.

CRD directors approved an average 2.67 per cent increase in the pay rates for executive positions.

The increases were recommended in keeping with the CRD policy of having senior staff pay levels at the “median” salary rate of 11 other local governments.

Some directors argued the increases are too rich and favour those at the upper end of the pay grid far more than those at the bottom.

Metchosin Mayor John Ranns said the lowest-pay band in the executive pay scale (for a position such as executive assistant) is about $60,000 a year.

Under the current policy, the rate of pay for that position has increased $6,398 since 2012, Ranns said. “If you go to the top pay band, the increase [for the same period] was $53,731 or about nine times as much. So there’s a problem right there,” Ranns said.

Add in cost-of-living increases that executive staff also receive and the gap simply compounds, Ranns said.

Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt said he neither supported the increases nor the policy that spawned them. He said local governments across the province are facing everescalating executive pay rates that are not affordable

“Not surprisingly, when you hire the same consultants and you compare those local governments you’re going to hear: ‘Oh you’re not keeping up with the Joneses.’

“You keep going higher and higher until you get to the situation where you are totally out of whack with what you’re paying your front-line employees and what the residents who are paying the taxes to support these organizations are paid,” Isitt said.

Under the CRD’s compensation policy, every three to five years the market is tested to ensure executive pay is at the median of 11 B.C. local governments. Any adjustment is not to exceed three per cent of total executive pay.

Saanich Coun. Colin Plant argued in favour of the increases, noting that they simply are in line with board policy.

“It’s never something we like to do when we see such significant cost increases, but our job as governors is to follow policy.

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps agreed.

“I think we have a responsibility to adhere to the policies that exist. I do take some consideration of what director Ranns said that people at the bottom don’t get increases as people at the top,” Helps said.

However, she said the people at the top of the CRD might have “10 times or 15 times as much responsibility.”

Helps said she would bring the policy to the finance committee, which she chairs, for a review.

She said a review might include factors such as cost of living, benefits, increases in responsibility, and performance.

The increases range from zero to six per cent and will add $280,542 to the CRD’s annual budget and be on top of a cost-ofliving increase. The cost-of-living increase would be equal to the average for Victoria and Saanich.

Meanwhile, CRD directors also voted themselves a one-time salary increase of up to 14 per cent to offset a change in federal taxes.

Those federal changes eliminate the one-third tax-free allowance for non-accountable expenses that has traditionally formed part of elected local government officials’ compensation. Those expenses might be for things like copy paper used at home or a portion of a home phone bill.

CRD staff estimated the budget impact of the increase at $84,000, or about 14 per cent. It translates to about 11 per cent for directors from urban areas (about $1,979 more on the base salary) and about 14 per cent (about $5,363) for electoral area directors.