CRD directors see their pay raises take off

Capital Regional District directors are getting higher salaries, and one unlikely elected official has cracked the $100,000 threshold.

The politician pulling in the most money for CRD duties in 2016 was not chairwoman and Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins or even Saanich’s Richard Atwell, mayor of the largest municipality in the CRD. Rather, it was Dave Howe, director for the Southern Gulf Islands Electoral Area, population 4,732.

Howe, who also serves as CRD vice-chairman, grossed $73,094 in salary and expenses from the CRD in 2016, according to its statement of financial information. Howe, also CRD finance committee chairman, was paid an additional $35,000 for sitting as the CRD’s elected representative on the sewagetreatment-project board, for a total of $108,094. The total does not include stipends or per diems for sitting on boards or commissions.

By comparison, Metchosin Mayor John Ranns, who represents a community of 4,708, received $25,070 in salary and expenses for his CRD duties in 2016. Desjardins, as CRD chairwoman, was paid $41,797 in salary and expenses for CRD duties in 2016. Her Esquimalt salary and expenses were $50,179, for a total CRD and municipal take of $91,976.61.

Howe did not return calls seeking comment.

The three electoral area directors who represent unincorporated areas are paid at a higher rate than other CRD directors because they are their area’s only elected local government representative, acting as de facto mayor and council.

Ranns said the workload of an electoral area director is astounding and, for Howe, it is compounded by plenty of ferry travel. “They put in a heck of a lot of time,” Ranns said. “It’s virtually a full-time job, what they’re doing.”

Juan de Fuca director Mike Hicks was the next highest paid behind Howe, taking in $62,787 in salary and expenses, followed by Salt Spring Island director Wayne McIntyre, who was paid $58,623.

Half the stipend is paid by their constituents and the balance is shared by the entire CRD, Hicks said.

Hicks, whose sprawling district reaches from Willis Point and the top of the Malahat up through west coast communities such as Jordan River, Port Renfrew and Sooke, described the job as “24/7 in your mind.”

“It’s somewhere between a priest and an ombudsman. It’s just continual when you’re dealing with people. It’s the same for all the [municipal] politicians. … It’s a hard job,” Hicks said.

In 2015, CRD directors voted to almost double their salaries and increase stipends for elected officials who chair standing committees — raises that took effect Jan. 1, 2016. The increases are reflected for the first time in the latest statement of financial information.

The increases pushed the base stipend for a CRD director to $17,000 a year from $8,940. The board chairperson has a gross additional stipend of $25,000 a year, up from $20,000, for a total of $42,000. The vicechair has an additional $5,000 and the CRD Hospital District chair another $5,000 on top of that. Directors are paid more for chairing standing committees.

Ranns said one of the reasons the directors approved the raises was to give themselves some credibility. “What was happening was we were being paid so little that it was a joke and we were being treated like a joke. So we had to bring it up somewhat. So they brought it up in kind of an incremental basis where if you sit on three committees, you get X amount of money. If you’re a board chair you get an extra $25,000,” Ranns said.

Stan Bartlett, of the Grumpy Taxpayers of Greater Victoria, said the problem is that this lacks transparency in that salaries are even further complicated by extra stipends local politicians receive.