Tecumseh council eyes retirement benefits

Tecumseh will consider next month the possibility of providing post-retirement benefits for town councillors — either by forming a compensation review committee or hiring an outside consultant to study changes to compensation. A report on the costs of adding post-retirement benefits for councillors in Tecumseh was presented to the town’s policies and priorities committee on Tuesday night. A recommendation in the report indicated councillors who serve four terms should receive postretirement benefits.

But Tecumseh resident Fiona Bryden, who has lived in town for nearly a decade, was upset over the possibility of town councillors even considering post-retirement benefits as part of their compensation.

She said it was only because she stumbled across an administration report on the issue while searching online for something else that she became aware that benefits were even being considered.

“It needs to be known to the public they are considering these changes in their (compensation) terms,” Bryden said Wednesday. “It’s an issue that needs to be open and transparent.

“So many companies are cutting post-retirement benefits and even current benefits. This would be an exponential cost to taxpayers. The councillors are part time and supposedly doing a service for the community, so I don’t know why they should get full-time (postretirement) benefits.”

The committee did not act on the recommendation, instead directing town administration to either form a public compensation review committee or retain an independent consultant to carry out a review on council compensation. The municipality’s CAO, Tony Haddad, said recent Canada Revenue changes on a tax-free component of what councillors receive, which go into effect in 2019, will also be part of the review.

The possibility of receiving postretirement benefits was raised by council through an inquiry in terms of what other municipalities do and in regards to potential costs, he said.

“We provided some of that information (to the policies and priorities committee) and they have referred it back to administration to have this looked at independently — whether that’s hiring a consultant or forming community committee,” Haddad said. Administration will report back to council in September, but an actual review of the council compensation issue, including postretirement benefits, is unlikely to occur until after the upcoming municipal elections on Oct. 22, he said.