Metro mayors seek provincial panel to make decision
If there’s one item municipal politicians dread seeing on a council agenda — even more than public art or welcome signage — it’s remuneration.
The topic of remuneration, which includes everything from wages and benefits to pensions, is fraught with peril, making council members uncomfortable and drawing the ire of the public.
“We hear it all the time: ‘It must be nice to be able to vote on your own salary.’ I tell you, it’s not nice, it’s not fun. Please take that away — none of us want to vote on that,” said Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart.
Instead Stewart, who has served on council since 2005 and was an MLA for one term before that, would like to see elected-official salaries determined by a provincially appointed independent commission, something for which he has long advocated.
“This is the one part of our job that I absolutely abhor. It leaves us all feeling incredibly uncomfortable, even if it’s the right decision,” Stewart said.
“We all shudder at the fact that these decisions are in our hands, and they shouldn’t be. I would trust any group to be able to make these kinds of decisions with less controversy than if we make them ourselves.”
It’s a timely suggestion, with Metro Vancouver’s board of directors, which is made up of 40 mayors and councillors from across the region, set to take a second look at remuneration-bylaw amendments that would give them a 15-per-cent pay adjustment and a retroactive retirement allowance.
The changes to the remuneration bylaw were voted on at a March 23 board of directors meeting and, following vehement public opposition, will be reconsidered at Friday’s board meeting.
The 15-per-cent pay raise was meant to offset tax changes to elected-official salaries that will come into effect Jan. 1, 2019.
The retirement allowance would see directors receive a lump-sum payment when they cease to be an elected official.
The allowance would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007, and cost Metro $498,000 in retroactive retirement earnings, and $62,500 per year going forward.
Stewart wasn’t present for the vote, but Coquitlam’s two alternate directors, Brent Asmundson and Terry O’Neill, both voted against the motion. Stewart said that if he had been there he would have done the same.
“My reasoning was primarily the retroactive element. Forget everything else, if the purpose of reviewing the remuneration of elected officials is to attract good people to public office, you can’t do that retroactively,” he said.
He said the vote and resulting backlash are a prime example of why a provincial remuneration commission would be a good idea.
In the District of North Vancouver, Mayor Richard Walton said council has sent the issue of remuneration to an outside citizens’
It leaves us all feeling incredibly uncomfortable, even if it’s the right decision.
committee, which made recommendations that were adopted and took effect after the next municipal election.
It’s a tactic he’d recommend to other communities — including regional districts like Metro — over having a provincial commission, simply because he believes municipalities are better equipped to determine what officials should be paid.
“I think ... they should put it out to a group of citizens who have knowledge and expertise,” Walton said.
“I think that’s a way of distancing it one step and avoiding council being accused of bias. I think that’s probably the way to go.”
Metro board chair Greg Moore said, “I think it’s appropriate that we look at best practices across the whole country on how localgovernment remuneration is done — look at Alberta and Ontario and Quebec to see how they do it and maybe there is something we can learn from them.”
West Vancouver Mayor Michael Smith, who has been openly critical of the retirement allowance and the pay raise, said the way remuneration is dealt with should be changed, and he doesn’t mind what Stewart has proposed.
“On the surface of it, I wouldn’t have any objection to that,” Smith said. “We certainly need somebody to review how things are done. It’s kind of the Wild West right now. All I know is there has to be a better way.”
He also suggested that Metro’s overall governance could use an overhaul, something he’d like to bring up at Friday’s meeting.
Walton said that the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) might be qualified to look at the issue of remuneration.
The UBCM doesn’t have a policy on the topic, and the last time it came up as a formal resolution was in 2012, when Maple Ridge asked the UBCM to urge the province to give the municipal auditor-general responsibility for determining the methodology for establishing remuneration levels for municipal councils.
The resolution wasn’t endorsed.