Pay flip-flop raises serious question

Re: Committee revisits 7.25% pay raises for legislative officers, Sept. 29

The recent flip-flop by the Standing Committee on Legislative Offices, chaired by MLA Denise Woollard, is highly concerning for many reasons. People who have crucial jobs to perform for the province were told they would get a pay increase and then this was denied — with this entire matter aired publicly. Imagine if that was you, how demeaning and demoralizing! A bigger issue is why this committee still exists.

This MLA-only committee approves the budgets of the Officers of the Legislature: specifically the Auditor General, Child and Youth Advocate, Chief Electoral Officer, Ethics Commissioner, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ombudsman, and Public Interest Commissioner; and it also reviews the salaries of these officers on an annual basis. MLAs have political agendas that can override good decisionmaking. MLAs also do not have the ability to judge job requirements and determine rewards or appropriate pay rates.

Personal contracts that include an annual COLA increase could replace this committee, and the budgets of these offices could be determined through another much less capricious way — such the annual provincial budgeting process. Please also remember that while our important officers are not getting any COLA or pay increase this year, rank and file MLAs get a generous base salary ( just over $127,000/ year) as well as additional pay when they sit on or chair legislative committees.

Although many Albertans were hoping for some new thinking and new ways of doing things with a new government, this poor use of taxpayer money needs to be noticed and fixed. On a final note, I have to ask how Denise Woollard, MLA for Edmonton-Millcreek heard from her southeast Edmonton constituents on this matter. She does not have a constituency office despite being elected on May 5. Taxpayers pay for MLAs to have local offices, and the previous MLA had an easily accessible one. Another serious gap in MLA responsibility. Donna Wilson, Edmonton