Councillors lambaste $100,000 boosts for sewage-panel chiefs

Increases of $100,000 each in compensation paid the chair and vice-chair of the Capital Regional District’s sewage treatment project board are too rich and out of proportion with what the average Victorian makes, says Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt.

CRD directors last month approved a recommendation from the project board that chairwoman Jane Bird and vice-chairman Don Fairbairn each be paid $20,000 a month until March in lieu of negotiated per diem and meeting preparation fees.

This week CRD directors received a report which showed the compensation that will be paid to Bird and Fairbairn from June last year until March 31 is expected to be $225,000 and $210,000 respectively — up $100,000 each.

“I have heard a lot of concern from the public about the level of remuneration,” Isitt told members of the CRD sewage committee Wednesday.

“Certainly the project board is working hard, but a number of members of our community work very hard for much less compensation. People making $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 as homecare workers. Certainly there’s a higher level of expertise required, but I just find the level of remuneration is out of line with incomes generally in the region.”

Staff said the funding arrangement was simply an extension of existing funding policy and that the $20,000 monthly flat fee was considered warranted for additional time spent dealing with funding agreements with senior governments and land-use issues.

The CRD in May approved a $20,000-a-month flat rate each for of Bird, Fairbairn and board member Jim Burke. The monthly rate was in lieu of per diem and preparation fees and was approved for June through October.

Isitt’s concerns were echoed by Victoria Coun. Geoff Young, who said the current sewage treatment project is “to a large extent repeating work that we have done before.”

“The fact is we are repeating a lot of work that was already done, quite ably, in my view, by the Seaterra board,” Young said.

But Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps disagreed, saying that unlike the dismantled Seaterra project, this project is moving ahead.

“We’re not going over and paying for work that was already done because last time there were no funding agreements signed and this time we’ll have funding agreements signed, hopefully, by the end of the month,” she said.

“Last time there was no collaborative process between the CRD, the project team and municipalities to, hopefully, bring forward a successful rezoning process and this time we have two successful collaborative processes underway” in Victoria and Esquimalt, Helps said.

The Core Area Waste Water Treatment Project Board was appointed by B.C. Community Minister Peter Fassbender last summer to oversee the CRD’s sewage treatment mega-project.