City councillors appear to be organizing to hike their own salaries

Any increase decided upon should be put on hold until the next council

With a few exceptions, most Peterborough city councillors are skittish about talking publicly about their salary expectations ... last term’s approval without debate of an income tax break on one-third of their city income being a case in point.

This is understandable, in that discussions of pay frequently raise critical assessments of one’s worth and value; and no politician wants to appear to be focused on self interest when his or her primary proposition has to do with public service.

In March 2017, city councillors reviewed their compensation and decided that the annual salary for their job, which was approximately $28,000, did not need to change. Future annual salary increases were to be based on the lesser of inflation or city staff wage increases. Councillors agreed that a compensation review should routinely take place in the second full year of every term – that would now mean 2020 – and that if an increase in pay is agreed to, it should only take effect in the next term of council – that would mean 2022 – so that councillors aren’t caught in the unseemly role of voting for a pay raise for themselves.

Even though these decisions appeared to settle the matter, a handful of city councillors remained unsatisfied with their pay. Last April, councillors approved a $1,000 increase in their annual employment expenses to compensate for the fact that they will have to pay income tax on their full salary beginning in 2019. At that meeting, Coun. Dean Pappas convinced council to again revisit the issue of councillor salaries as part of the 2019 budget process. Councillors understood that having another look at increasing their salaries as the 2018 election season approached was asking for electoral trouble. By putting it off until early 2019, with a new council, they would have a much better chance of raising their pay without raising the ire of voters.

City staff advise that a new report on councillor compensation will be presented at the Jan. 14 finance committee as part of the 2019 budget review process.

In its anticipation, some city councillors have been quietly organizing support from their peers to substantially increase their own pay by as much as 30 to 40 per cent. The problem, aside from the obvious insensitivity of approving massive salary increases for themselves that are at odds with those of working people, is that such a move would eliminate the previous council’s thoughtful decisions.

It would abandon the decision to have salary increases pegged to inflation. It would ditch the idea of regular salary reviews in the second year of each term. Most importantly, it would reject the wise idea of councillors not voting increases for themselves.

A decision by the new city council to award itself a hefty increase in pay as one of its first items of business would be a master stroke of dumb politics. Some councillors will think that including a large salary increase in the complex budget process will make it easier to hide from the public.

Some councillors will think it better to take the money and suffer the political hit early in the term because the public will forget about it before the next election. Some councillors will think that it is timely because rookie councillors can be convinced that they are worthy of a bump in salary.

If a salary increase for councillors is justified, it should be applied only to the next council. The current plan smacks of the kind of self-serving hubris that can only get the new city council off on the wrong foot.