City council overdue for a raise, says citizen committee
CAMBRIDGE — Cambridge city council can vote itself an eight per cent raise — plus a cost-ofliving allowance — next week.
The citizen committee on council compensation, whose recommendation is up for a vote on Tuesday, figures the mayor and eight councillors are overdue for the pay hike — especially when compared to counterparts’ pay in Waterloo and Kitchener.
“It’s catch-up,” said committee chair Sandi Nicholls, who works in the financial services industry and served on the same committee in the past. “We were on the lower side, probably because we have not done this in two terms now. The previous committee had never recommended a costof-living increase. So we did do the cost-of-living as well so that should not probably happen again where you see a bigger jump like this.”
Last April, council voted itself a salary boost to take effect in January, which will make up for the loss of tax-exemption status for one-third of councillors’ municipal salary and maintain their take-home pay levels.
The mayor’s city salary was $74,260 for 2018. It is already set to rise to $93,248 for 2019. If council approves the recommendation on Tuesday, it will jump a further $7,752 to $101,000.
Councillor salaries, planned to rise from $30,120 to $37,822 in the new year, could be pushed up by another $3,178 to $41,000.
“It brought them in line with Waterloo,” Nicholls said of the proposed pay hike to go before council on Tuesday. “Not as much as Kitchener, but it brought them in line with what Waterloo was earning.”
According to a City of Cambridge report, Waterloo’s mayor will earn $100,274 in January while councillors make $40,737. Kitchener’s mayor, the report says, will earn $102,354 while its councillors make $52,658.
The citizen committee, which met in August and September and included Paul Brown and Sam Gharbaway, also recommends city council have some perks taken away.
Home internet costs would no longer be paid for by the city. Mayor and council will have to pay the full cost of benefits if they wish them. Mayor and council will no longer be eligible for longterm disability coverage.
The total net annual cost of the recommendations is $11,453.
“These are elected officials,” Nicholls said. “Many of them are retired or have jobs. So why are we paying for a benefit package for someone that’s part-time?”
The mayor, as a full-time employee, would be enrolled in the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension plan as of Jan. 1, if the recommendations are approved. The mayor can also get benefits from the region as a member of regional council, the report notes.
“The fact that they even had short-term and long-term disability blew me away,” Nicholls said. “You’re opening up a can of worms that you could be paying a councillor for from here to eternity on a disability claim. And then you could actually have that councillor replaced. It just didn’t make sense.”
Tuesday is the final meeting for the current city council with Doug Craig as mayor. The first meeting of the new council — the same eight councillors and new mayor Kathryn McGarry — is on Dec. 4. Nicholls expects council to approve the pay hike recommended by the citizens committee. “I would be stunned if they turn it down,” she said.